ENGLISH SONNETS.

VOL. II.

CONTINUED.

ON THE ARRIVAL OF THE VESSEL ANNOUNCING THE SET-
TLEMENT OF DIFFERENCES WITH AMERICA.*

HERE comes a gallant vessel, in full trim,
Into the haven, high, majestical,

With music in her motion, as if all

The waves, o'er which she doth so lightly skim,

Rose up and sunk in cadence to each whim
And playful fancy of her rise and fall!

The sun is sinking, gilding yon dark pall
Of clouds, whose edges even now grow dim,

Ready to close around the grave of day!

But whence comes she, with sails the sun makes gold,

To fit them golden missions to convey?

Brings she Hesperian fruitage, long foretold,

From the far West? O yes, she comes to say,

She brings its best fruit, Peace, typed in that fable old!

II.

POETRY A DAILY BREAD.

O MUSE, thy nourishment, which unto some
Is but as manna in the wilderness,

Found but in seasons of their strange distress
And sorrows, which unseal lips elsewhile dumb,
And make the waters in dry places come,

The heart's Castalian springs!—to me is less
- the daily bread I bless,

Than this, yet more;

And live on; household bread, and made at home!

And if, with no profane comparison,

Reader, I break and offer it to thee,

'Tis as a sacrament, a sublime one,

The sacrament of Man's Humanity!

Of which partaking, I would have thee none
But as thy Brethren view, whate'er they be.

III.

BY THE SEA-SHORE.

HERE sit I, like some god of the old prime,
Just wakened into divine consciousness;
Like Neptune, when his great hand did caress
The Ocean's mane first, at the dawn of Time,
Ere his dread name had passed into a rhyme !
Here sit I, while the sea with wavy stress
And emphasis, and utterance nothing less
Than epic, lends a voice to thoughts sublime!
Here sit I, musing upon things to come

Beyond all reach of mortal eloquence;

Till, unto that which had but struck me dumb, The great Sea, giving articulate sound and sense, Sublimes the mighty but confuséd hum

Into a voice as of Omnipotence !