* * * * *

THE RUINED WELL.

(For the Mirror.)

  The form of ages long gone by
  Crowd thick on Fancy’s wondering eye,
  And wake the soul to musings high!

J.T.  WALTER.

  Where are the lights that shone of yore
    Around this haunted spring? 
  Do they upon some distant shore
    Their holy lustre fling? 
  It was not thus when pilgrims came
    To hymn beneath the night,
  And dimly gleam’d the censor’s flame
    When stars and streams were bright.

  What art thou—­since five hundred years
    Have o’er thy waters roll’d;
  Since clouds have wept their crystal tears
    From skies of beaming gold? 
  Thy rills receive the tint of heaven,
    Which erst illum’d thy shrine;
  And sweetest birds their songs have given,
    For music more divine.

  Beside thee hath the maiden kept
    Her vigils pale and lone;
  While darkly have her ringlets swept
    The chapel’s sculptur’d stone;
  And when the vesper-hymn was sung
    Around the warrior’s bier,
  With cross and banner o’er him hung,
    What splendour crown’d thee here!

  But a cloud has fall’n upon thy fame! 
    The woodman laves his brow,
  Where shrouded monks and vestals came
    With many a sacred vow;
  And bluely gleams thy sainted spring
    Beneath the sunny tree;
  Then let no heart its sadness bring,
    When Nature is with thee.

REGINALD AUGUSTINE.

* * * * *

A Siamese Chief hearing an Englishman expatiate upon the magnitude of our navy, and afterwards that England was at peace, cooly observed, “If you are at peace with all the world, why do you keep up so great a navy?”

* * * * *

THE SKETCH-BOOK.

* * * * *

WRECK ON A CORAL REEF.

(To the Editor of the Mirror.)

I take the liberty of transmitting you an authentic, though somewhat concise, narrative of the loss of the Hon. Company’s regular ship, “Cabalva,” (on the Cargados, Carajos, in the Indian Seas, in latitude 16 deg. 45 s.) in July, 1818, no detailed account having hitherto appeared.  The following was written by one of the surviving officers, in a letter to a friend.

A CONSTANT READER.

The Hon. Company’s ship, Cabalva, having struck on the Owers, in the English Channel, and from that circumstance, proving leaky, and manifesting great weakness in her frame, it was thought advisable to bear up for Bombay in order to dock the ship.  Meeting with a severe gale of wind off the Cape, (in which we made twenty inches of water per hour,) we parted from our consort, and shaped a course for Bombay; but on the 7th of July, between four and five A.M.