Its strength: like the hand of God it moves-
And the arm of flesh all too feeble proves!
Dash'd on the whelm'd deck the mother lay;
And her helpless infant was hurried away;
It uttered one shrill cry of pain and fear,
And that last sound came to its parent's ear
She echoed it back with a wilder cry,

And the next flash gleamed on a maniac's eye.

THE INCHCAPE BELL.

Southey.

No stir in the air, no swell on the sea,
The ship was still as she might be :
The sails from heaven receiv'd no motion.
Her keel was steady in the ocean.

With neither sign nor sound of shock,
The waves flow'd o'er the Inchcape Rock;
So little they rose, so little they fell,
They did not move the Inchcape Bell.

The pious abbot of Aberbrothock

Had plac'd that bell on the Inchcape Rock;
On the waves of the storm it floated and swung,
And louder and louder its warning rung.

When the rock was hid by the tempest swell,
The mariners heard the warning bell;
And then they knew the perilous rock,
And bless'd the abbot of Aberbrothock.

The float of the Inchcape Bell was seen,
A darker spot on the ocean green.
Sir Ralph the Rover walk'd the deck,
And he fix'd his eye on the darker speck.

His eye was on the bell and float;'
Quoth he-" My men, put out the boat,
And row me to the Inchcape Rock-
I'll plague the priest of Aberbrothock!"

The boat is lower'd, the boatmen row,
And to the Inchcape Rock they go:
Sir Ralph leant over from the boat,
And cut the warning bell from the float.

Down sank the bell with a gurgling sound,
The bubbles rose, and burst around:

Quoth he-" The next who comes to the rock
Will not bless the priest of Aberbrothock!

Sir Ralph the Rover sail'd away;
He scour'd the seas for many a day;
At length, grown rich with plunder'd store,
He steers his course for Scotland's shore.

So thick a haze o'erspread the sky,
They could not see the sun on high;
The wind had blown a gale all day,
At evening it had died away.

"Canst hear," said one, "the breakers roar?
For yonder, methinks, should be the shore:
Now, where we are I cannot tell-

But I wish we could hear the Inchcape Bell."

They heard no sound: the swell is strong;
Though the wind had fall'n, they drift along,
Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock :-
"Oh, heavens! it is the Inchcape Rock!

Sir Ralph the Rover tore his hair,
And curs'd himself in wild despair;
The waves rush in on every side,
The ship sinks fast beneath the tide.

:

THE END.

William Eglington, Printer, 92, Goswell Street, London.