derney._

I.

"Sprinkled thick with shining studs
Stretches wide the tent of heaven,
Blue, begemmed with golden buds,--
Calm, and bright, and deep, and clear,
Glory's hollow hemisphere
Arch'd above these frothing floods
Right and left asunder riven,
As our cutter madly scuds,
By the fitful breezes driven,
When exultingly she sweeps
Like a dolphin through the deeps,
And from wave to wave she leaps
Rolling in this yeasty leaven,--
Ragingly that never sleeps,
Like the wicked unforgiven!

II.

"Midnight, soft and fair above,
Midnight, fierce and dark beneath,--
All on high the smile of love,
All below the frown of death:
Waves that whirl in angry spite
With a phosphorescent light
Gleaming ghastly on the night,--
Like the pallid sneer of Doom,
So malicious, cold, and white,
Luring to this watery tomb,
Where in fury and in fright
Winds and waves together fight
Hideously amid the gloom,--
As our cutter gladly sends,
Dipping deep her sheeted boom
Madly to the boiling sea,
Lighted in these furious floods
By that blaze of brilliant studs,
Glistening down like glory-buds
On the Race of Alderney!"

A few more words as to my Sarnian literaria. Victor Hugo, when resident
in Guernsey, had greatly offended my cousin (the chief of our clan) by
stealing for his hired abode the title of our ancestral mansion, Haute
Ville House: and so, when I called on him, the equally offended
Frenchman would not see me, though I was indulged with a sight of the
_bric-a-brac_ wherewith he had filled his residence, albeit deprived of
access to its inmate. Hugo was not popular among the sixties at that
time. Since then, Mr. Sullivan of Jersey published on his decease some
splendid stanzas in French, which by request I versified in English: so
that our spirits are now manifestly _en rapport_.

I wrote also (as I am reminded) an ode on the consecration of St.
Anne's, Alderney, when I accompanied the Bishop to the ceremony: and
some memorable stanzas about the decent expediency of the Bailiff and
Jurats being robed for official uniform, since ornamentally adopted; but
before I wrote they wore mean and undistinguished "mufti."

I had also much to do on behalf of my friend Durham, the sculptor, in
the matter of his bronze statue to Prince