The windows of her apartment were at an immense elevation from the beach, as that part of the castle-wall formed a continued line with the black and precipitous side of the rock on which it stood. During the greater portion of the hours of daylight she sate near the window with her harp, gazing on the changeful aspects of the wintry sea, now slumbering like a summer lake in the sunshine of a halcyon day—now raging beneath the sway of the tempest, while the dancing snow-flakes seemed to accumulate on the foam of the billows, and the spray was hurled back like snow-dust from the rocks. The feelings these scenes suggested she developed in the following stanzas, to which she adapted a wild and impassioned air, and they became the favourite song of her captivity. [Illustration: _Gazing on the changeful aspects of the wintry sea._] THE MAGIC BARK I O Freedom! power of life and light! Sole nurse of truth and glory! Bright dweller on the rocky cliff! Lone wanderer on the sea! Where’er the sunbeam slumbers bright On snow-clad mountains hoary; Wherever flies the veering skiff, O’er waves that breathe of thee! Be thou the guide of all my thought— The source of all my being— The genius of my waking mind— The spirit of my dreams! To me thy magic spell be taught, The captive spirit freeing, To wander with the ocean-wind Where’er thy beacon beams. II O sweet it were, in magic bark, On one loved breast reclining, To sail around the varied world, To every blooming shore; And oft the gathering storm to mark Its lurid folds combining; And safely ride, with sails unfurled, Amid the tempest’s roar; And see the mighty breakers rave On cliff and sand and shingle, And hear, with long re-echoing shock, The caverned steeps reply; And while the storm-cloud and the wave In darkness seemed to mingle, To skim beside the surf-swept rock, And glide uninjured by. III