I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved the great sea more and more,
And backwards flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh its 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;
And 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've lived since then, in calm and strife,
Full fifty summers, a sailor's life,
With wealth to spend and a power to range,
But never have sought nor sighed for change; And Death, whenever he comes to me,
Shall come on the wild, unbounded sea!
THOUSAND miles from land are we,
Tossing about on the roaring sea;
From billow to bounding billow cast,
Like fleecy snow on the stormy blast:
The sails are scattered abroad, like weeds,
The strong masts shake, like quivering reeds,
The mighty cables, and iron chains,
The hull, which all earthly strength disdains,
They strain and they crack, and hearts like stone
Their natural hard, proud strength disown.
Up and down! Up and down!
From the base of the wave to the billow's crown,
And amidst the flashing and feathery foam
The stormy petrel finds a home,
A home, if such a place may be,
For her who lives on the wide, wide sea,
On the craggy ice, in the frozen air,
And only seeketh her rocky lair
To warm her young, and to teach them to spring
At once o'er the waves on their stormy wing!
O'er the deep! O'er the deep!
Where the whale and the shark and the sword-fish
Outflying the blast and the driving rain,
The Petrel telleth her tale in vain ;
For the mariner curseth the warning bird
Who bringeth him news of the storms unheard!
Ah! thus does the prophet, of good or ill,
Meet hate from the creatures he serveth still:
Yet he never falters. So, Petrel! spring
Once more o'er the waves on thy stormy wing!
Bryan Waller Procter.
OOK 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!
Bryan Waller Procter.
METHINKS I fain would lie by the lone sea,
And hear the waters their white music weave!
Methinks it were a pleasant thing to grieve,
So that our sorrows might companioned be
By that strange harmony
Of winds and billows, and the living sound
Sent down from heaven when the thunder speaks, Unto the listening shores and torrent creeks,
When the swollen sea doth strive to burst his bound!
Methinks, when tempests come and kiss the ocean,
Until the vast and terrible billows wake,
I see the writhing of that curléd snake,
Which men of old believed, — and my emotion
Warreth within me, till the fable reigns
God of my fancy, and my curdling veins
Do homage to that serpent old,
Which clasped the great world in its fold,
And brooded over earth, and the charmed sea,
Like endless, restless, drear Eternity!
THOU vast ocean! ever-sounding sea!
Thou symbol of a drear immensity !
Thou thing that windest round the solid world
Like a huge animal, which, downward hurled
From the black clouds, lies weltering and alone,
Lashing and writhing till its strength be gone!
Thy voice is like the thunder, and thy sleep
Is as a giant's slumber, loud and deep.
Thou speakest in the east and in the west
At once, and on thy heavy-laden breast
Fleets come and go, and things that have no life
Or motion, yet are moved and met in strife.
The earth hath naught of this: no chance nor change
Ruffles its surface, and no spirits dare
Give answer to the tempest-wakened air;
But o'er its wastes the weakly tenants range
At will, and wound its bosom as they go:
Ever the same, it hath no ebb, no flow;
But in their stated rounds the seasons come,
And pass like visions to their viewless home,
And come again, and vanish: the young Spring
Looks ever bright with leaves and blossoming;
And Winter always winds his sullen horn,
When the wild Autumn, with a look forlorn
Dies in his strong manhood; and the skies
Weep, and flowers sicken, when the Summer flies.
Thou only, terrible occan, hast a power,
A will, a voice, and in thy wrathful hour,
When thou dost lift thine anger to the clouds,
A fearful and magnificent beauty shrouds
Thy broad green forehead. If thy waves be driven
Backward and forward by the shifting wind,
How quickly dost thou thy great strength unbind, And stretch thine arms, and war at once with Heaven!
Thou trackless and immeasurable main!
On thee no record ever lived again
To meet the hand that writ it; line nor lead
Hath ever fathomed thy profoundest deeps,
Where haply the huge monster swells and sleeps,
King of his watery limit, who, 't is said,
Can move the mighty ocean into storm,
O, wonderful thou art, great element,
And fearful in thy spleeny humors bent,
And lovely in repose; thy summer form
Is beautiful, and when thy silver waves
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