COME, hoist the sail, the fast let go! The ripples lightly tap the boat. Loose!-Give her to the wind! She shoots ahead:-They're all afloat: The strand is far behind. Soft breezes take you on your way, O, might I like those breezes be, I'd toil for ever on the sea Where ye are floating now. The boat goes tilting on the waves; The waves go tilting by; There dips the duck;—her back she laves; O'er head the sea-gulls fly. Now, like the gulls that dart for prey, The little vessel stoops; Now rising, shoots along her way, Like them, in easy swoops. The sun-light falling on her sheet, It glitters like the drift THE PLEASURE BOAT. Sparkling in scorn of summer's heat, The winds are fresh; she's driving fast The crinkling sail, and crinkling mast, Go with her side by side. Why dies the breeze away so soon? For, see, the winged fisher's plume -Whose eyes look up at thee? She smiles; thou needst must smile on her. A rich, white cloud that doth not stir.— And pictured beach of yellow sand, Change the smooth sea to fairy land.— 117 From that far isle the thresher's flail Strikes close upon the ear; The leaping fish, the swinging sail Of yonder sloop sound near. LOVE AND FRIENDSHIP. BY W. LEGGETT. THE birds, when winter shades the sky, Where laughing isles in sunshine lie, And thus the friends that flutter near While fortune's sun is warm, Are startled if a cloud appear, And fly before the storm. But when from winter's howling plains Each other warbler's past, The little snow bird still remains, And cherups midst the blast. Love, like that bird, when friendship's throng With fortune's sun depart, Still lingers with its cheerful song, And nestles on the heart. |