I never was on the dull, tame shore, But I loved the great sea more and more, And backward flew to her billowy breast, Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest; And a mother she was and is to me; For I was born on the open sea! The waves were white, and red the morn, In the noisy hour when I was born; And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled, And the dolphins bared their backs of gold; And never was heard such an outcry wild As welcomed to life the ocean-child! I've lived since then, in calm and strife, Full fifty summers a sailor's life, With wealth to spend and a power to range, But never have sought nor sighed for change; And Death, whenever he comes to me, Shall come on the wild, unbounded sea! B. W. Proctor. CCVI. NAPOLEON. His falchion flashed along the Nile; His hosts he led through Alpine snows; O'er Moscow's towers, that blazed the while, His eagle flag unrolled,--and froze. Here sleeps he now, alone! Not one Of all the kings, whose crowns he gave, Bends o'er his dust;--nor wife, nor son, Has ever seen or sought his grave. Behind this sea-girt rock, the star That led him on from crown to crown, Has sunk; and nations from afar Gazed as it faded and went down. High is his couch;--the ocean flood, Far, far below, by storms is curled; As round him heaved, while high he stood A stormy and unstable world. Alone he sleeps! The mountain cloud That night hangs round him, and the breath Of morning scatters, is the shroud That wraps the conqueror's clay in death. Pause here! The far-off world, at last, Breathes free; the hand that shook its thrones, And to the earth its mitres cast, Lies powerless now beneath these stones. Hark! comes there, from the pyramids, And from Siberian wastes of snow, And Europe's hills, a voice that bids The world he awed to mourn him? No: