That have survived the language which they speak,
Preserving its dead emblems to the eye,
Yet hiding from the mind what these reveal ;- Her pyramids would be mere pinnacles, Her giant statues, wrought from rocks of granite, But puny ornaments for such a pile As this stupendous mound of catacombs, Filled with dry mummies of the builder-worms.
DEEP in the wave is a coral grove, Where the purple mullet and gold-fish rove; Where the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blue That never are wet with falling dew, But in bright and changeful beauty shine Far down in the green and glassy brine. The floor is of sand, like the mountain drift, And the pearl-shells spangle the flinty snow; From coral rocks the sea-plants lift Their boughs, where the tides and billows flow: The water is calm and still below,
For the winds and waves are absent there, And the sands are bright as the stars that glow In the motionless fields of upper air. There, with its waving blade of green, The sea-flag streams through the silent water, And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen To blush, like a banner bathed in slaughter. There, with a light and easy motion, The fan-coral sweeps through the clear deep sea; And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean Are bending like corn on the upland lea : And life, in rare and beautiful forms, Is sporting amid those bowers of stone, And is safe when the wrathful Spirit of storms Has made the top of the wave his own. And when the ship from his fury flies, Where the myriad voices of Ocean roar; When the wind-god frowns in the murky skies, And demons are waiting the wreck on shore ; Then, far below, in the peaceful sea, The purple mullet and gold-fish rove, Where the waters murmur tranquilly, Through the bending twigs of the coral grove.
THIS is the ship of pearl, which, poets feign, Sails the unshadowed main, The venturous bark that flings
On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings In gulfs enchanted, where the Siren sings,
Thanks for the heavenly message brought by thee, Child of the wandering sea, Cast from her lap, forlorn! From thy dead lips a clearer note is born Than ever Triton blew from wreathed horn! While on mine ear it rings,
Through the deep caves of thought I hear a voice that sings:
Build thee more stately mansions, O my soul, As the swift seasons roll!
Leave thy low-vaulted past!
Let each new temple, nobler than the last, Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast, Till thou at length art free,
Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea!
WHEN descends on the Atlantic The gigantic
Storm-wind of the equinox, Landward in his wrath he scourges
The toiling surges,
Laden with sea-weed from the rocks:
From Bermuda's reefs; from edges Of sunken ledges,
In some far-off, bright Azore; From Bahama, and the dashing, Silver-flashing
Surges of San Salvador;
From the tumbling surf that buries The Orkneyan skerries,
Answering the hoarse Hebrides; And from wrecks of ships, and drifting
Spars, uplifting
On the desolate, rainy seas;
Ever drifting, drifting, drifting On the shifting
Currents of the restless main;
Till in sheltered coves, and reaches
Of sandy beaches,
All have found repose again.
So when storms of wild emotion Strike the ocean
Of the poet's soul, ere long,
From each cave and rocky fastness
Floats some fragment of a song:
From the far-off isles enchanted Heaven has planted With the golden fruit of Truth; From the flashing surf, whose vision Gleams Elysian
In the tropic clime of Youth;
From the strong Will, and the Endeavor That forever
Wrestles with the tides of Fate; From the wreck of Hopes far-scattered, Tempest-shattered,
Floating waste and desolate ;
Ever drifting, drifting, drifting
On the shifting Currents of the restless heart; Till at length in books recorded,
They, like hoarded
Household words, no more depart.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.
A WEARY Weed, tossed to and fro, Drearily drenched in the ocean brine, Soaring high and sinking low,
Lashed along without will of mine; Sport of the spume of the surging sea; Flung on the foam, afar and anear, Mark my manifold mystery,
Growth and grace in their place appear.
I bear round berries, gray and red, Rootless and rover though I be; My spangled leaves, when nicely spread, Arboresce as a trunkless tree;
Corals curious coat me o'er,
White and hard in apt array; Mid the wild waves' rude uproar Gracefully grow I, night and day.
Hearts there are on the sounding shore, Something whispers soft to me, Restless and roaming forevermore,
Like this weary weed of the sea;
Bear they yet on each beating breast
The eternal type of the wondrous whole, Growth unfolding amidst unrest, Grace informing with silent soul.
CORNELIUS GEORGE FENNER.
THE sea, the sea, the open sea, The blue, the fresh, the ever free; Without a mark, without a bound,
It runneth the earth's wide regions round; It plays with the clouds, it mocks the skies, Or like a cradled creature lies.
I'm on the sea, I'm on the sea,
I am where I would ever be,
With the blue above and the blue below, And silence wheresoe'er I go.
If a storm should come and awake the deep, What matter? I shall ride and sleep.
I love, O, how I love to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide, Where every mad wave drowns the moon, And whistles aloft its tempest tune, And tells how goeth the world below, And why the sou'west wind doth blow! 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 her 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; The whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled, And the dolphins bared their backs of gold; And never was heard such an outery wild, As welcomed to life the ocean child.
I have lived since then, in calm and strife, Full fifty summers a rover's life,
With wealth to spend, and a power to range, But never have sought or sighed for change: And death, whenever he comes to me, Shall come on the wide, unbounded sea!
BRYAN WALLER PROCTER (BARRY CORNWALL).
SONG OF THE EMIGRANTS IN BERMUDA.
WHERE the remote Bermudas ride In the ocean's bosom unespied, From a small boat that rowed along The listening winds received this song: "What should we do but sing His praise That led us through the watery maze Where he the huge sea monsters wracks, That lift the deep upon their backs, Unto an isle so long unknown, And yet far kinder than our own? He lands us on a grassy stage, Safe from the storms' and prelates' rage; He gave us this eternal spring Which here enamels everything, And sends the fowls to us in care On daily visits through the air. He hangs in shades the orange bright Like golden lamps in a green night, And does in the pomegranates close Jewels more rich than Ormus shows: He makes the figs our mouths to meet, And throws the melons at our feet; But apples plants of such a price, No tree could ever bear them twice. With cedars chosen by his hand From Lebanon he stores the land; And makes the hollow seas that roar Proclaim the ambergris on shore. He cast (of which we rather boast) The gospel's pearl upon our coast; And in these rocks for us did frame A temple where to sound his name. O, let our voice his praise exalt Till it arrive at heaven's vault, Which then perhaps rebounding may Echo beyond the Mexique bay !"- Thus sung they in the English boat A holy and a cheerful note; And all the way, to guide their chime, With falling oars they kept the time.
O'ER the glad waters of the dark blue sea, Our thoughts as boundless and our souls as free, Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam, Survey our empire, and behold our home! These are our realms, no limits to their sway, - Our flag the scepter all who meet obey. Ours the wild life in tumult still to range From toil to rest, and joy in every change. O, who can tell? not thou, luxurious slave! Whose soul would sicken o'er the heaving wave; Not thou, vain lord of wantonness and ease! Whom slumber soothes not, - pleasure cannot please.
O, who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried, And danced in triumph o'er the waters wide, The exulting sense, the pulse's maddening play, That thrills the wanderer of that trackless way? That for itself can woo the approaching fight, And turn what some deem danger to delight; That seeks what cravens shun with more than zeal, And where the feebler faint can only feel- Feel to the rising bosom's inmost core, Its hope awaken and its spirit soar?
No dread of death- if with us die our foes- Save that it seems even duller than repose: Come when it will we snatch the life of life— When lost what recks it by disease or strife? Let him who crawls enamored of decay Cling to his couch and sicken years away; Heave his thick breath, and shake his palsied head: Ours the fresh turf, and not the feverish bed. While gasp by gasp he falters forth his soul, Ours with one pang — one bound - escapes con- trol.
His corse may boast its urn and narrow cave, And they who loathed his life may gild his grave: Ours are the tears, though few, sincerely shed, When Ocean shrouds and sepulchers our dead.
FROM "THE BRITISH FLEET."
DESERTED by the waning moon,
When skies proclaim night's cheerless noon, On tower, or fort, or tented ground
The sentry walks his lonely round; And should a footstep haply stray
More light and swift than thou none thread the Where caution marks the guarded way,
Then we kissed the little maiden, And we spoke in better cheer, And we anchored safe in harbor
When the morn was shining clear. JAMES T. FIELDS.
WHEN in the storm on Albion's coast, The night-watch guards his weary post, From thoughts of danger free, He marks some vessel's dusky form, And hears, amid the howling storin, The minute-gun at sea.
Swift on the shore a hardy few
The life-boat man with a gallant crew
And dare the dangerous wave; Through the wild surf they cleave their way, Lost in the foam, nor know dismay, For they go the crew to save.
But, O, what rapture fills each breast Of the hopeless crew of the ship distressed! Then, landed safe, what joy to tell Of all the dangers that befell! Then is heard no more,
Her yielding timbers sever,
Her pitchy seams are rent, When Heaven, all bounteous ever, Its boundless mercy sent,
A sail in sight appears!
We hail her with three cheers;
Now we sail, with the gale,
From the Bay of Biscay, O!
ROCKED IN THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP.
ROCKED in the cradle of the deep,
I lay me down in peace to sleep; Secure I rest upon the wave,
For thou, O Lord! hast power to save.
I know thou wilt not slight my call, For thou dost mark the sparrow's fall; And calm and peaceful is my sleep, Rocked in the cradle of the deep.
And such the trust that still were mine, Though stormy winds swept o'er the brine, Or though the tempest's fiery breath Roused me from sleep to wreck and death!
In ocean's caves still safe with thee, The germ of immortality;
And calm and peaceful is my sleep, Rocked in the cradle of the deep.
LOUD roared the dreadful thunder, The rain a deluge showers, The clouds were rent asunder
By lightning's vivid powers; The night both drear and dark, Our poor devoted bark, Till next day, there she lay, In the Bay of Biscay, O!
Now dashed upon the billow, Her opening timbers creak, Each fears a watery pillow, None stops the dreadful leak; To cling to slippery shrouds Each breathless seaman crowds, As she lay, till the day, In the Bay of Biscay, O!
At length the wished-for morrow Broke through the hazy sky, Absorbed in silent sorrow,
Each heaved a bitter sigh; The dismal wreck to view Struck horror to the crew, As she lay, on that day, In the Bay of Biscay, O!
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