The boat goes tilting on the waves;

The waves go tilting by :

There dips the duck, her back she laves : O'erhead 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 sunlight falling on her sheet,
It glitters like the drift,
Sparkling, in scorn of Summer's heat,
High up some mountain rift.

The winds are fresh; she's driving fast
Upon the bending tide;

The crinkling sail and crinkling mast
Go with her side by side.

Why dies the breeze away so soon?
Why hangs the pennant down?
The sea is glass; the Sun at noon.
Nay, lady, do not frown;

For, see, the wingèd fisher's plume
Is painted on the sea:

Below, a cheek of lovely bloom.

Whose eyes look up at thee?

She smiles; thou needs must smile on her:
And, see, beside her face

A rich white cloud that doth not stir:
What beauty, and what grace!

And pictured beach of yellow sand,
And peaked rock, and hill

Change the smooth sea to fairy land:
How lovely and how still!

From that far isle the thresher's flail
Strikes close upon the ear;
The leaping fish, the swinging sail

Of yonder sloop, sound near.

The parting Sun sends out a glow
Across the placid bay,

Touching with glory all the show.
A breeze! Up helm ! Away!

Careering to the wind, they reach,
With laugh and call, the shore.
They've left their footprints on the beach,
But then I hear no more.

THE NEW YEAR.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

RING out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new ;
Ring, happy bells, across the snow;
The year is going; let him go;
Ring out the false; ring in the true.

Ring out the grief, that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor;
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,

And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;

Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right;
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,

The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land; Ring in the Christ that is to be.

FISH-WOMEN AT CALAIS.

"TIS said, fantastic ocean doth enfold
The likeness of whate'er on land is seen;
But, if the Nereid Sisters and their Queen,
Above whose heads the tide so long hath roll'd,
The Dames resemble whom we here behold,
How fearful were it down through opening waves
To sink and meet them in their fretted caves,
Wither'd, grotesque, immeasurably old,
And shrill and fierce in accent! Fear it not:
For they Earth's fairest daughters do excel;
Pure undecaying beauty is their lot;

Their voices into liquid music swell,

Thrilling each pearly cleft and sparry grot,

The undisturb'd abodes where Sea-nymphs dwell!

IX.

HUMOROUS, COMIC.

AUNT TABITHA.

O. W. HOLMES.

WHATEVER I do and whatever I say,
Aunt Tabitha tells me that isn't the way;
When she was a girl, (forty Summers ago,)
Aunt Tabitha tells me they never did so.

Dear aunt! if I only would take her advice,
But I like my own way, and I find it so nice!
And besides I forget half the things I am told;
But they will come back to me, when I am old.

If a youth passes by, it may happen, no doubt,
He may chance to look in as I chance to look out:
She would never endure an impertinent stare;
It is horrid, she says, and I mustn't sit there.

A walk in the moonlight has pleasure, I own,
But it isn't quite safe to be walking alone;

So I take a lad's arm, just for safety, you know; But Aunt Tabitha tells me, they didn't do so.

How wicked we are, and how good they were then! They kept at arm's length those detestable men: What an era of virtue she lived in! - but stay, Were the men such rogues in Aunt Tabitha's day?

-

If the men were so wicked, I'll ask my papa
How he dared to propose to my darling mamma?
Was he like the rest of them? goodness! who knows?
And what shall I say, if a wretch should propose?

I am thinking if aunt knew so little of sin,

What a wonder Aunt Tabitha's aunt must have been!
And her grand-aunt,-it scares me,-how shockingly sad
That we girls of to-day are so frightfully bad!

A martyr will save us, and nothing else can;
Let us perish to rescue some wretched young man !
Though, when to the altar a victim I go,

Aunt Tabitha'll tell me.

she never did so.

AWFULLY LOVELY PHILOSOPHY.

A FEW days ago a Boston girl, who had been attending the School of Philosophy at Concord, arrived in Brooklyn, on a visit to a seminary chum. After canvassing thoroughly the fun and gum-drops that made up their education in the seat of learning at which their early scholastic efforts were made, the Brooklyn girl began to inquire the nature of the Concord entertainment.

"And so you are taking lessons in philosophy! How do you like it?"

"O, it's perfectly lovely! It's about science, you know, and we all just dote on science."

"It must be nice. What is it about?"

"It's about molecules as much as any thing else, and molecules are just too awfully nice for any thing. If there's any thing I really enjoy it's molecules."

"Tell me about them, my dear. What are molecules?"