SONNET IX.

Stately yon vessel sails adown the tide

To some far-distant land adventurous bound; The sailors busy cries from side to side

Pealing among the echoing rocks resound :
A patient, thoughtless, much-enduring band,
Joyful they enter on their ocean way,
With shouts exulting leave their native land,
And know no care beyond the present day.
But is there no poor mourner left behind,

Who sorrows for a child or husband there?
Who at the howling of the midnight wind

Will wake and tremble in her boding prayer? So may her voice be heard, and Heaven be kind!.. Go gallant ship, and be thy fortune fair!

G

SONNET X.

O God! have mercy in this dreadful hour
On the poor mariner! in comfort here
Safe sheltered as I am, I almost fear
The blast that rages with resistless power.

What were it now to toss upon the waves,.. The maddened waves and know no succour near; The howling of the storm alone to hear

And the wild sea that to the tempest raves;
To gaze amid the horrors of the night
And only see the billow's gleaming light;
Amid the dread of death to think of her
Who as she listens sleepless to the gale
Puts up a silent prayer and waxes pale ?
O God have mercy on the mariner!

SONNET XI.

She comes majestic with her swelling'sails
The gallant bark; along her watery way
Homeward she drives before the favouring gales;
Now flirting at their length the streamers play
And now they ripple with the ruffling breeze.
Hark to the sailors shouts! the rocks rebound
Thundering in echoes to the joyful sound.
Long have they voyaged o'er the distant seas,
And what a heart-delight they feel at last,
So many toils, so many dangers past,

To view the port desir'd, he only knows
Who on the stormy deep for many a day
Hath tost, aweary of his ocean way,

And watch'd all anxious every wind that blows.

G 2

SONNET XII.

A wrinkled crabbed man they picture thee
Old Winter, with a rugged beard as grey
As the long moss upon the apple-tree;
Blue lipt, an ice drop at thy sharp blue nose,

Close muffled up, and on thy dreary way,
Plodding alone thro' sleet and drifting snows.
They should have drawn thee by the high-heapt hearth
Old Winter! seated in thy great arm'd chair,
Watching the children at their Christmas mirth,
Or circled by them as thy lips declare
Some merry jest or tale of murder dire,
Or troubled spirit that disturbs the night,
Pausing at times to move the languid fire,

Or taste the old October brown and bright.

Anomalies.