as if wandering in a dream through some
city built of gigantic houses out of a Dutch
toy-box.

THE WATER-ELF.

A water-fairy sat and play'd
Within the lustrous darkness made
By the tall rushes' tangled shade.

He had a harp of subtle power;
And often, at the evening hour,
Sang loudly in his sedgy bower.

He told of sailors' weltering graves,
Of caverns which the pearl-fish paves,
And gentle demons in the waves:

And of the rushing orbs, moon-bright—
Large splendours of the deep—that light
The floating, dark-blue water-night:—

Aspects flashing, swift, and free;
And of marvellous shapes, that be
In the still places of the sea:

And of translucent rivers, where
The naiads loose their glittering hair,
Half robed in tresses, and half bare;

And, stretching upward to the brink,
Their cold white arms in fetters link
About some youth who stoops to drink

The Elf, whose voice and instrument
These wondrous tales with twilight blent,
Was loving at heart, and innocent.

And, as he play'd and sang, the lake
Heaved; and the ripples, half awake,
A sleeply sort of sound would make.

But once some children hither came,
Just as the sunset's upward aim
Flush'd monumental clouds with flame.

And, standing close upon the brim
Of the Elf's bower, all watery dim,
They laugh'd, and threw hard words at him;

Crying, "Old brazen devil! know,
"Twere better if you wail'd for woe.
You fell from Heaven long ago,

"And cannot climb back to your place;
For the men who carry a grave face,
Say you have never a chance of grace."

The music droop'd, as though in sleep;
And from his bower, close and deep,
The Fairy was heard to moan and weep,

Lamenting, like a five years' child,
Fill'd with strange sorrow, and yet mild,
With its own grief half reconcil'd.

The scorners felt rebuked, and fled
Straight to their father, struck with dread,
And told him all that they had said.

He—wise, and therefore kind—did cling
To that great love for every thing
Which cometh of much pondering:

Love that is pure and fresh as light,
And rich with the wide-clasping sight
Of knowledge, that makes love inlinite.

Therefore he rose, and went straightway
Along the meadows, silvery-gray
With evening, tow'rds the mournful Fay;

And rais'd his voice across the lake,
And cried, "Oh, gentle Spirit! take
Thy harp again, and let it wake.

"Heaven's love, like its own air, is thrown
Round all, and was not meant alone
For the mere life of flesh and bone.

"Whate'er from largely-vital earth,
Mother of many kinds, has birth—
Fairies that guard the household hearth,

"Elves of old woods and fields divine,
And brown-bright goblins of the mine;
With what the waters crystalline

"Engender; spirits in air that flee,
And rock-crown'd genii of the sea—
All rest in God's smooth round, as we.

"All shapes that creep, swim, fly, or ran,
Are from the same clear substance spun:
The elemental heavens are one."

He ceas'd. The ripples softly stirr'd,
And the Elf's voice again was heard
In sudden sparkles, like a bird.

That sharp joy past; and, at the close,
A mist of milder music rose
Out of the waters' flat repose.

The stars came forth, gold-bright, yet chill;
And evening, o'er the eastern hill,
Deepen'd to night, and all was still.

Yet even when the world lay stark
In sleep, and none was there to mark,
That music went up through the dark,

And touch'd the morning's portal white;
Like odours, in their viewless might,
Filling the solemn wastes of night.

THE "DREADNOUGHT."

I hope that the readers of "Household
Words" have not entirely forgotten the
visitor of the Sailor's Home—the exponent of
the Blue-jacket Agitation—the friend and
quondam messmate of the zealous PIPP, late
of H.M.S. "Bustard." To that officer's
enthusiasm I owe, once more, a hint; he it was
who pointed out to me the propriety of
bestowing a description on the "Seamen's
Hospital" at Greenwich—that huge, quiet,
solemn old man-of-war hull, which stands out
above the surrounding craft in the river, with
something of the effect of a ruined castle in a
little country place. Pipp's enthusiasm on
professional matters may positively be said to
be on the increase;—his "lines" for a new
frigate are, I believe, under official
consideration at this moment; and he meditates a
pamphlet on the Navigation Laws. So, the