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THE SEA-IN CALM.

From each cave and rocky fastness

In its vastness,

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 for ever

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.

Hearts there are on the sounding shore,

Something whispers soft to me, Restless and roaming for evermore,

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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-IN CALM.

Look what immortal floods the sunset pours Upon us-Mark! how still (as though in dreams

Bound) the once wild and terrible ocean seems!

How silent are the winds! no billow roars;
But all is tranquil as Elysian shores.
The silver margin which aye runneth round
The moon-enchanted sea, hath here no sound;
Even Echo speaks not on these radiant moors!
What is the giant of the ocean dead,
Whose strength was all unmatched beneath
the sun?

No: he reposes! Now his toils are done;
More quiet than the babbling brooks is he.
So mightiest powers by deepest calms are fed,
And sleep, how oft, in things that gentlest be!

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III.

There, with its waving blade of green,

Thou call'st along the sand, and haunt 'st the The sea-flag streams through the silent water,

surge,

Restless and sad; as if, in strange accord
With the motion and the roar
Of waves that drive to shore,

One spirit did ye urge―
The Mystery-the Word.

IV.

Of thousands thou both sepulchre and pall,
Old Ocean, art! A requiem o'er the dead
From out thy gloomy cells
A tale of mourning tells-
Tells of man's woe and fall,
His sinless glory fled.

V.

Then turn thee, little bird, and take thy flight Where the complaining sea shall sadness bring

Thy spirit never more.

Come, quit with me the shore

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.
JAMES GATES PERCIVAL

For gladness, and the light

Where birds of summer sing.

RICHARD HENRY DANA.

THE CORAL GROVE.,

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.

HAMPTON BEACH.

THE sunlight glitters keen and bright,
Where, miles away,

Lies stretching to my dazzled sight
A luminous belt, a misty light,

Beyond the dark pine bluffs and wastes of sandy gray.

The tremulous shadow of the sea!
Against its ground

Of silvery light, rock, hill, and tree,
Still as a picture, clear and free,
With varying outline mark the coast for
miles around.

On-on-we tread with loose-flung rein Our seaward way,

Through dark-green fields and blossoming grain,

Where the wild brier-rose skirts the lane, And bends above our heads the flowering

locust spray.

SENECA LAKE.

Ha! like a kind hand on my brow

Comes this fresh breeze, Cooling its dull and feverish glow, While through my being seems to flow The breath of a new life-the healing of the seas!

Now rest we, where this grassy mound His feet hath set

In the great waters, which have bound His granite ankles greenly round

I sit alone; in foam and spray Wave after wave

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Breaks on the rocks which, stern and gray, Beneath like fallen Titans lay,

Or murmurs hoarse and strong through mossy cleft and cave.

What heed I of the dusty land
And noisy town?

I see the mighty deep expand

From its white line of glimmering sand

With long and tangled moss, and weeds with To where the blue of heaven on bluer waves

cool spray wet.

Good-bye to pain and care! I take

Mine ease to-day;

Here, where these sunny waters break, And ripples this keen breeze, I shake All burdens from the heart, all weary thoughts away.

I draw a freer breath; I seem

Like all I see

Waves in the sun-the white-winged gleam Of sea-birds in the slanting beamAnd far-off sails which flit before the south wind free.

So when Time's veil shåll fall asunder,
The soul may know

No fearful change, nor sudden wonder,
Nor sink the weight of mystery under,
But with the upward rise, and with the vast-

ness grow.

And all we shrink from now may seem

No new revealing

Familiar as our childhood's stream,

Or pleasant memory of a dream,

shuts down!

In listless quietude of mind,

I yield to all

The change of cloud and wave and wind; And passive on the flood reclined,

I wander with the waves, and with them rise and fall.

But look, thou dreamer!-wave and shore In shadow lie;

The night-wind warns me back once more To where my native hill-tops o'er Bends like an arch of fire the glowing sunset sky!

So then, beach, bluff, and wave, farewell! I bear with me

No token stone nor glittering shell, But long and oft shall Memory tell Of this brief, thoughtful, hour of musing by the sea.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER

TO SENECA LAKE.

The loved and cherished Past upon the new ON thy fair bosom, silver lake,

life stealing.

Serene and mild, the untried light May have its dawning;

And, as in Summer's northern light The evening and the dawn unite,

The wild swan spreads his snowy sail, And round his breast the ripples break, As down he bears before the gale.

On thy fair bosom, waveless stream, The dipping paddle echoes far,

The sunset hues of Time blend with the soul's And flashes in the moonlight gleam,

new morning.

And bright reflects the polar star.

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