THE FISHERMAN'S SONG.

BY RICHARD PENN SMITH.

When the morning sun is breaking
In a pure and cloudless sky,

And the sleeping world is waking
With a burst of melody;

Then we leave our humble dwelling,
Put our little bark to sea,

And though angry waves be swelling.
Still we sing, O, merrily,
Merrily, O, merrily.

When the storm is madly roaring,
And Death walks upon the wave,
Then we think of friends deploring
Lest we find a watery grave:
Think then of our lowly dwelling.
While the winds pipe drearily,
Like wild dirges o'er us swelling,
Still we sing, O, merrily,
Merrily, O, merrily.

But our toils and dangers over,
'Then the faggots brightly burn;
Soon the festive board they cover,
And to welcome our return,
See the good wife blandly smiling
With a child on either knee,
And the bowl our cares beguiling.
Then we sing, O, merrily,
Merrily, O, merrily.

ORIGINAL.

[1833.

THE FUNERAL OF SHELLEY. "Peace, peace to his ashes! they sleep by the wave." To a funeral pile they bore

The breathless child of song,
Made beside the sounding shore
That billows swept along.
At the solemn hour of night

They journeyed with the dead,
And the torch unearthly light

On the sad procession shed.

Dark and starless was the sky,

And the murmur of the surge,
Blended with the sea mew's cry
Seemed a melancholy dirge
For him they brought to sleep,
In a cold and sandy grave,
Where the blue wave of the deep,
Might his form forever lave.

On boughs of mountain pine
The sleeping bard they laid:
Did the spectral moonbeams shine
Though the forest's dim arcade?
No! the torch they have applied
To the poet's funeral bed,
And far off upon the tide.
It doth a radiance shed.

Oft his requiem will be sung,

When the sighing sea-gales blow,
And where rests his harp unstrung
Will the water lily grow.
Far from the noise and strife
Of this world his ashes sleep,

For his spirit was in life

Not unlike the chainless deep,

AVON BARD.

The poet Shelley you are aware was drowned in Italy, and buried at night by the sea shore, Byron was present; before burialt hey reduced the body to ashes on accor of decompositi