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Or where the rocking billows rise

and sink

On the chafed ocean-side?

There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,

The desert and illimitable air,

Lone wandering, but not lost.

All day thy wings have fanned At that far height the cold, thin atmosphere,

Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,

Though the dark night is near.

And soon that toil shall end, Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest,

And scream among thy fellows: reeds shall bend,

Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.

Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet on my heart

Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given,

And shall not soon depart.

He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,

In the long way that I must tread

alone

Will lead my steps aright.

That rolled the wild, profound, eternal bass

In nature's anthem, and made music such

As pleased the ear of God! original, Unmarred, unfaded work of Deity! And unburlesqued by mortal's puny skill;

From age to age enduring, and unchanged,

Majestical, inimitable, vast, Loud uttering satire, day and night, on each

Succeeding race, and little pompous work

Of man; unfallen, religious, holy sea! Thou bowedst thy glorious head to none, fearedst none, Heardst none, to none didst honor, but to God

Thy Maker, only worthy to receive Thy great obeisance.

OCEAN.

POLLOK.

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BRYANT.

SEA SONG.

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DEEP in the wave is a coral grove, Where the purple mullet and goldfish 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 the 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

green,

of

The sea-flag streams through the silent water,

And the crimson leaf of the dulse is

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He gave us this eternal spring
Which here enamels every thing,
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.
Oh! 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.
A. MARVELL.

CAVE OF STAFFA.

THANKS for the lessons of this spot,

fit school

For the presumptuous thoughts that would assign

Mechanic laws to agency divine, And, measuring heaven by earth, would overrule

Infinite power. The pillared vestibule,

Expanding yet precise, the roof embowed,

Might seem designed to humble man, when proud

Of his best workmanship by plan and tool.

Down-bearing with his whole Atlantic weight

Of tide and tempest on the structure's base,

And flashing upwards to its topmost height,

Ocean has proved its strength, and of its grace

In calms is conscious, finding for his freight

Of softest music some responsive place.

WORDSWORTH.

FLOWERS ON THE TOP OF THE PILLARS AT THE ENTRANCE OF THE CAVE.

HOPE smiled when your nativity was cast,

Children of summer! Ye fresh flowers that brave

What summer here escapes not, the fierce wave,

And whole artillery of the western blast.

Battering the temple's front, its long-drawn nave

Smiting, as if each moment were their last.

But ye, bright flowers, on frieze and architrave

Survive, and once again the pile stands fast,

Calm as the universe, from specular towers

Of heaven contemplated by spirits

pure

Suns and their systems, diverse yet sustained

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