SIR A. LYALL.

A NIGHT IN THE RED SEA

The strong hot breath of the land is lashing The wild sea-horses, they rear and race; The plunging bows of our ship are dashing Full in the fiery South Wind's face.

She rends the water, it foams and follows, And the silvery jet of the towering spray, And the phosphor sparks in the deep wave hollows,

Lighten the line of our midnight way.

The moon above with its full-orbed lustre, Lifting the veil of the slumberous land, Gleams o'er a desolate island cluster,

And the breakers white on the lonely sand.

And a bare hill range in the distance frowning,

Dim wrapt in haze like a shrouded 'ghost, With its jagged peaks the horizon crowning, Broods o'er the stark Arabian coast.

See, on the edge of the waters leaping,

The lamp, far flashing, of Perim's Strait Glitters and grows, as the ship goes sweeping

Fast on its course for the Exile's gate.

And onward still to the broadening ocean,

Out of the narrow and perilous seas, Till we rock with a large and listless motion In the moist soft air of the Indian breeze.

And the Southern Cross, like a standard flying,

Hangs in the front of the tropic night, But the Great Bear sinks, like a hero dying, And the Pole Star lowers its signal light;

And the round earth rushes toward the morning,

And the waves grow paler and wan the foam,

Misty and dim, with a glance of warning, Vanish the stars of my northern home.

Let the wide waste sea for a space divide

me,

Till the close-coiled circles of time unfold, Till the stars rise westward to greet and guide me,

!

When the Exile ends, and the years are

told.

MEDITATIONS OF A HINDU PRINCE

All the world over, I wonder, in lands that I never have trod,

Are the people eternally seeking for the signs and steps of a God?

Westward across the ocean, and Northward ayont the snow,

Do they all stand gazing, as ever, and what do the wisest know?

Here, in this mystical India, the deities hover and swarm,

Like the wild bees heard in the tree-tops, or the gusts of a gathering storm ;

In the air men hear their voices, their feet on the rocks are seen,

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Yet we all say, Whence is the message,

and what may the wonders mean?”

A million shrines stand open, and ever the censer swings,

As they bow to a mystic symbol, or the figures of ancient kings;

And the incense rises ever, and rises the endless cry

Of those who are heavy laden, and of cowards loth to die.

For the Destiny drives us together, like deer in a pass of the hills,

Above is the sky, and around us the sound of the shot that kills;

Pushed by a power we see not, and struck by a hand unknown,

We pray to the trees for shelter, and press our lips to a stone.

The trees wave a shadowy answer, and the rock frowns hollow and grim,

And the form and the nod of the demon are caught in the twilight dim;

And we look to the sunlight falling afar on the mountain crest,

Is there never a path runs upward to a refuge there and a rest ?

The path, ah ! who has shown it, and which is the faithful guide ?

The haven, ah! who has known it? for steep is the mountain side,

For ever the shot strikes surely, and ever the wasted breath

Of the praying multitude rises, whose answer is only death.

Here are the tombs of my kinsfolk, the fruit of an ancient name,

Chiefs who were slain on the war-field, and women who died in flame;

They are gods, these kings of the fore time,

they are spirits who guard our race, Ever I watch and worship; they sit with a marble face.

And the myriad idols around me, and the legion of muttering priests,

The revels and rites unholy, the dark unspeakable feasts!

What have they rung from the Silence ? Hath even a whisper come

Of the Secret, whence and whither? Alas, for the gods are dumb.

Shall I list to the word of the English, who come from the uttermost sea ?

The Secret, hath it been told you, and what is your message to me?”

It is nought but the wide-world story how the earth and the heavens began, How the gods are glad and angry, and a Deity once was man.

I had thought, "Perchance in the cities where the rulers of India dwell, Whose orders flash from the far land, who girdle the earth with a spell,

They have fathomed the depths we float on, or measured the unknown main ". Sadly they turn from the venture and say that the quest is vain.

ls life, then, a dream and delusion, and where shall the dreamer awake?

Is the world seen like shadows on water, and what if the mirror break?

Shall it pass as a camp that is struck, as a tent that is gathered and gone

From the sands that were lamp-lit at eve, and at morning are level and lone?