Toward the deep mid-ocean

Tides ran and swift winds blew; It must be there those Islands

Await the longing view.

Their shores are soft with verdure,

Their skies for ever fair, And always is the fragrance

Of blossoms on the air.

I set our sail to seek them,

But she, my Love, drew back : “Not yet; the night is chilly,

I fear that unknown track."

So home we sailed, at twilight,

To the familiar shore; Turned from the golden glory,

To live the old life o'er.

We'll make no further ventures,

For timid is my Love, – Until fresh sailing orders

Are sent us from above.

Then to the deep mid-ocean

Though we reluctant sail, We'll find our Happy Islands

And joys that cannot fail.

LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.

MY SEAWARD WINDOW.

135

MY SEAWARD WINDOW.

THE sweet moon rules the east to-night,

'HE

To show the sun she too can shine, From his forsaken cell of night

She builds herself a jewelled shrine.

From my lone window look I forth

Where the grim headlands point to sea, And think how out between them passed

The ship that bore my friend from me.

A track of silvery splendor leads

To where my straining sight was stayed ; It may be there our two souls met,

And vows of earnest import made.

But then the autumn noontide glow

O’er the still sea stretched far and wide, While kneeling, watching from the cliff,

“My friend is dear to me!” I cried. My little children dancing cried, Why do

you kneel and gaze so far ?” “I kneel to bless my parting friend,

And even ye forgotten are.”
And one might ask,

6 What boots this song
Sung lonely to yon wintry skies?”
It leads me by a holier light
Where Memory's solemn comfort lies.

JULIA WARD HOWE. THE SEA.

F

FOR lo! the sea that fleets about the land,

And like a girdle clips her solid waist, Music and measure both doth understand:

For his great crystal eye is always cast Up to the moon, and on her fixed fast; And as she danceth in her pallid sphere, So danceth be about the centre here.

Sometimes his proud green waves, in order set,

One after other flow into the shore,
Which, when they have with many kisses wet,

They ebb away in order as before.
And to make known his courtly love the more,
He oft doth lay aside his three-forkt mace,
And with his arms the timorous earth embrace.

JOHN DAVIES, 1596.

BY THE SEA.

IT

is a beauteous evening, calm and free;

The holy time is quiet as a nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquillity.

The gentleness of heaven is on the sea;
Listen! the mighty being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder — everlastingly.

THE MARINERS.

137

Dear child ! dear girl ! that walkest with me here, If thou appear untouched by solemn thought, Thy nature is not therefore less divine :

Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year,
And worship’st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH.

THE MARINERS.

R
AISE we the yard and ply the oar,

The breeze is calling us swift away;
The waters are breaking in foam on the shore ;

Our boat no more can stay, can stay.

When the blast flies fast in the clouds on high,

And billows are roaring loud below, The boatman's song, in the stormy sky,

Still dares the gale to blow, to blow.

The timber that frames his faithful boat

Was dandled in storms on the mountain peaks, And in storms, with a bounding keel, 'twill float,

And laugh when the sea-fiend shrieks, and shrieks.

And then, in the calm and glistening nights,

We have tales of wonder, and joy, and fear, And deeds of the powerful ocean sprites,

With which our hearts we cheer, we cheer.

For often the dauntless mariner knows

That he must sink to the land beneath, Where the diamond on trees of coral grows,

In the emerald halls of Death, of Death.

Onward we sweep through smooth and storm ;

We are voyagers all in shine or gloom ; And the dreamer who skulks by his chimney Drists in his sleep to doom, to doom.

JOHN STERLING.

warm

THE SEA.

THE

HE 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, oh how I love to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
When every mad wave drowns the moon,
Or whistles aloft his tempest tune,