THOUGHTS BY THE SEA.
I.
I had been reading Paul's great argument, Where, after those strange chapters darkly penn'd,
He bursts out with ry t3406; at the end,
When, whether thought or memory might present Such picture—lo ! a galleon was bent Under reef d topsails through a strait to drop, Hung o'er with cliffs that almost touched at top. Dark o'er the wallowing sea the vessel went, Till instantaneously she had passed through ; A touch of moonlight on her sails ; before her World without end the waves; the blue sky o'er her.
Behold! I thought, an image grandly true!
After Predestination's narrow road, The silver ocean of the love of God.
H.
A hot day in September ; a white mist Clung to the vale, and up the hill a blur, As of thin smoke, part blue, part silverer Stretched o'er the corn. The ripples lazily kissed, As on the bent I lay their sound to list.
Between Lough Swilly and the mountain spur I saw a green down stretch without a stir.
A curlew was the only harmonist ; The sole shapes there were gulls, that in the heat Strutted upon the sward a space and back, White-plumed ; and crows, like crones in shawls of black Dropp'd glossy from the shoulders to the feet. But far afield, howe'er the day may burn, Harvesters work—and that is much is learn. W. A.
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