We dream of wonders past,
Vague as the tales the wandering Arab tells,
Each drowsier than the last.

O fools and blind! Above the Pyramids
Stretches once more that hand,
And tranced Egypt, from her stony lids,
Flings back her veil of sand.

And morning-smitten Memnon, singing, wakes;
And, listening by his Nile,
O'er Ammon's grave and awful visage breaks
A sweet and human smile.

Not, as before, with hail and fire, and call
Of death for midnight graves,
But in the stillness of the noonday, fall
The fetters of the slaves.

No longer through the Red Sea, as of old,
The bondmen walk dry shod;
Through human hearts, by love of Him controlled,
Runs now that path of God.

1856.

THE CONQUEST OF FINLAND.

"Joseph Sturge, with a companion, Thomas Harvey, has been visiting the
shores of Finland, to ascertain the amount of mischief and loss to poor
and peaceable sufferers, occasioned by the gun-boats of the allied
squadrons in the late war, with a view to obtaining relief for them."--
Friends' Review.

ACROSS the frozen marshes
The winds of autumn blow,
And the fen-lands of the Wetter
Are white with early snow.

But where the low, gray headlands
Look o'er the Baltic brine,
A bark is sailing in the track
Of England's battle-line.

No wares hath she to barter
For Bothnia's fish and grain;
She saileth not for pleasure,
She saileth not for gain.

But still by isle or mainland
She drops her anchor down,
Where'er the British cannon
Rained fire on tower and town.

Outspake the ancient Amtman,
At the gate of Helsingfors
"Why comes this ship a-spying
In the track of England's wars?"

"God bless her," said the coast-guard,--
"God bless the ship, I say.
The holy angels trim the sails
That speed her on her way!

"Where'er she drops her anchor,
The peasant's heart is glad;
Where'er she spreads her parting sail,
The peasant's heart is sad.

"Each wasted town and hamlet
She visits to restore;
To roof the shattered cabin,
And feed the starving poor.

"The sunken boats of fishers,
The foraged beeves and grain,
The spoil of flake and storehouse,
The good ship brings again.

"And so to Finland's sorrow
The sweet amen