the diver's hands.
Yet how the heart lists breathless for the roar
Of billows plashing on the other shore!

_The other shore!_--Oh thou dim Land!
Hid by faint mists from the spent swimmer's eyes,
Until upon the sloping bank he stand,
Mute in the light of Eden-mysteries;
Thou golden Ophir of Youth's spirit-dream,
Shall I then reach thee through this turbid stream?

Friend! quail not! This same gloomy tide
Rolling its fearful breakers to the shore,
Shall be transform'd, upon the other side,
Into the crystal Life-stream, shaded o'er
By Paradisal groves, whose mellow fruit
Shall heal the sorrows of the destitute.

These ghostly vapours, brooding low,
Shall melt to sunny glories o'er my head,
And through them shall the golden city glow,
Whither I hasten singing, angel-led;
Friend! there is but a cloud-veil 'twixt us and the light,
One step beyond, and Heaven is in our sight.

Now the stream laps my vesture hem;
Back thou from my sad bosom to the world,
Leaving me here this current cold to stem;
Soon from thy sight shall I be swiftly whirl'd
Into the mystic darkness--never fear!
God's hand shall guide me unto vision clear.

Already thou art growing dim,
And distant on the fast receding shore;
The tide is strong, but still I trust in Him,
And know that I shall safely struggle o'er,
For now the plash on yonder shore I hear,
Amid sweet angel voices calm and clear.

WYTHAM WOODS.

'Mid the waving Woods of Wytham,
Now so far, so far from me,
Where the grand old beeches be,
And the deer-herds feeding by them:
'Mid the mossy Woods of Wytham,
Oft I roam in memory;

Down the grand wide-arching alleys,
Marged by plumy ferns and flowers,
Whence all through the noontide hours
Many a fearless leveret sallies;
For amid those grassy alleys
Never hound nor huntsman scours.

Still I see, through leafy casements,
Wytham Hall so quaint and old,
Remnant of the age of gold,
Gabled o'er from roof to basement
In most fanciful enlacement,
Looking far o'er wood and wold;

With the mere outspread before it;
Whitest swans upon its tide,
That in mystic beauty glide;
And the wild fowl flapping o'er it,
To the reeds that broadly shore it,
Spear-like, on the sunny side.

Through the waving Woods of Wytham,
Now so far, so far from me,
Where I roam in memory;
'Mid the leaves, or flashing by them,
Like sunshine to glorify them,
On my sunle