In livid and obdurate gloom he darkens down at last;

A shapely one he is, and strong, as e'er from cat was cast.

O trusted and trustworthy guard, if thou hadst life like me, What pleasures would thy toils reward beneath the deep green sea!

O deep sea-diver, who might then

behold such sights as thou? The hoary monster's palaces! me

thinks what joy 'twere now To go plumb plunging down amid

the assembly of the whales, And feel the churned sea round me boil beneath their scourging tails!

Then deep in tangle-woods to fight the fierce sea-unicorn,

And send him foiled and bellowing back, for all his ivory horn; To leave the subtile sworder-fish of bony blade forlorn;

And for the ghastly-grinning shark to laugh his jaws to scorn; To leap down on the kraken's back, where 'mid Norwegian isles

He lies, a lubber anchorage for sudden shallowed miles;

'Till snorting, like an under-sea volcano, off he rolls;

Meanwhile to swing, a-buffeting the far astonished shoals

Of his back-browsing ocean-calves; or, haply in a cove, Shell-strewn, and consecrate of old to some Undiné's love, To find the long-haired maidens; or, hard by icy lands,

To wrestle with the sea-serpent, upon cerulean sands.

THE SOLDIER'S DREAM. OUR bugles sang truce; for the

night-cloud had lowered,

And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky; And thousands had sunk on the ground overpowered, The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.

When reposing that night on my pallet of straw,

By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain,

At the dead of the night a sweet vision I saw,

And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again.

Methought from the battle-field's dreadful array

Far, far I had roamed on a desolate track:

THE PALM AND THE PINE.
BENEATH an Indian palm a girl
Of other blood reposes;
Her cheek is clear and pale as pearl,
Amid that wild of roses.

Beside a northern pine a boy
Is leaning fancy-bound,
Nor listens where with noisy joy
Awaits the impatient hound.

Cool grows the sick and feverish calm,

Relaxed the frosty twine,
The pine-tree dreameth of the palm,
The palm-tree of the pine.

As soon shall nature interlace
Those dimly visioned boughs,
As these young lovers face to face
Renew their early vows!

MILNES.