Giving a hint of that which changes not.
Rich are the sea-gods :- who gives gifts but they?
They grope the sea for pearls, but more than pearls:
They pluck Force thence, and give it to the wise.
For every wave is wealth to Dædalus,
Wealth to the cunning artist who can work
This matchless strength. Where shall he find,
O waves !
A load your Atlas shoulders cannot lift?
I with my hammer pounding evermore
The rocky coast, smite Andes into dust,
Strewing my bed, and, in another age,
Rebuild a continent of better men.
Then I unbar the doors: my paths lead out
The exodus of nations: I disperse
Men to all shores that front the hoary main.
DOVER BEACH.
THE sea is calm to-night,
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the Straits; on the French coast, the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window; sweet is the night air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the ebb meets the moon-blanched sand,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves suck back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand.
Begin and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.
FROM "THE TRIUMPH OF TIME."
I WILL go back to the great sweet mother-
Mother and lover of men, the Sea.
I will go down to her, I and none other,
Close with her, kiss her, and mix her with me;
Cling to her, strive with her, hold her fast.
O fair white mother, in days long past
Born without sister, born without brother,
Set free my soul as thy soul is free.
O fair green-girdled mother of mine,
Sea, that art clothed with the sun and the rain,
Thy sweet hard kisses are strong like wine,
Thy large embraces are keen like pain.
Save me and hide me with all thy waves,
Find me one grave of thy thousand graves,
Those pure cold populous graves of thine,
Wrought without hand in a world without stain.
I shall sleep, and move with the moving ships,
Change as the winds change, veer in the tide ;
My lips will feast on the foam of thy lips,
I shall rise with thy rising, with thee subside;
Sleep, and not know if she be, if she were,
Filled full with life to the eyes and hair,
As a rose is full filled to the rose-leaf tips
With splendid summer and perfume and pride.
This woven raiment of nights and days,
Were it once cast off and unwound from me, Naked and glad would I walk in thy ways,
Alive and aware of thy waves and thee;
Clear of the whole world, hidden at home,
ADDRESS TO THE OCEAN.
O 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 heavily laden breast
Fleets come and go, and shapes that have no life
Or motion, yet are moved and meet in strife.
The earth has naught of this: no chance or
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 wonted 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 stormy manhood; and the skies
Weep, and flowers sicken, when the summer flies.
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
Make music in earth's dark and winding caves,
Clothed with the green, and crowned with the I love to wander on thy pebbled beach,
A pulse of the life of thy straits and bays,
A vein in the heart of the streams of the Sea.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE.
Marking the sunlight at the evening hour,
And hearken to the thoughts thy waters teach,---
Eternity Eternity and Power.
BRYAN WALLER PROCTER (Barry Cornwall).
ON THE LOSS OF THE ROYAL GEORGE. Then headlong plunging thunders on the ground;
WRITTEN WHEN THE NEWS ARRIVED; 1782.
TOLL for the brave,
The brave that are no more!
All sunk beneath the wave,
Fast by their native shore.
Eight hundred of the brave, Whose courage well was tried, Had made the vessel heel,
And laid her on her side.
A land-breeze shook the shrouds,
And she was overset ;
Down went the Royal George,
With all her crew complete.
Toll for the brave!
Brave Kempenfelt is gone; His last sea-fight is fought, His work of glory done.
It was not in the battle;
No tempest gave the shock; She sprang no fatal leak;
She ran upon no rock.
His sword was in its sheath,
His fingers held the pen,
When Kempenfelt went down
With twice four hundred men.
Weigh the vessel up,
Once dreaded by our foes! And mingle with our cup The tear that England owes.
Her timbers yet are sound,
And she may float again,
Full charged with England's thunder, And plough the distant main.
But Kempenfelt is gone;
His victories are o'er ;
And he and his eight hundred
Shall plough the wave no more.
Earth groans! air trembles! and the deeps re
Her giant-bulk the dread concussion feels,
And quivering with the wound in torment reels.
So reels, convulsed with agonizing throes,
The bleeding bull beneath the murderer's blows.
Again she plunges hark! a second shock
Tears her strong bottom on the marble rock :
Down on the vale of death, with dismal cries,
The fated victims, shuddering, roll their eyes
In wild despair; while yet another stroke,
With deep convulsion, rends the solid oak;
Till like the mine, in whose infernal cell
The lurking demons of destruction dwell,
At length asunder torn her frame divides,
And, crashing, spreads in ruin o'er the tides.
O, were it mine with tuneful Maro's art
To wake to sympathy the feeling heart;
Like him the smooth and mournful verse to dress
In all the pomp of exquisite distress,
Then too severely taught by cruel fate,
To share in all the perils I relate,
Then might I with unrivalled strains deplore
The impervious horrors of a leeward shore !
As o'er the surge the stooping mainmast hung,
Still on the rigging thirty seamen clung;
Some, struggling, on a broken crag were cast,
And there by oozy tangles grappled fast.
Awhile they bore the o'erwhelming billows' rage,
Unequal combat with their fate to wage;
Till, all benumbed and feeble, they forego
Their slippery hold, and sink to shades below.
Some, from the main-yard-arm impetuous thrown
On marble ridges, die without a groan.
Three with Palemon on their skill depend,
And from the wreck on oars and rafts descend.
Now on the mountain wave on high they ride,
Then downward plunge beneath the involving
Till one, who seems in agony to strive,
The whirling breakers heave on shore alive;
The rest a speedier end of anguish knew,
And pressed the stony beach, a lifeless crew!
Upon his brow he felt their breath,
And in his waving hair,
And looked from that lone post of death
In still yet brave despair;
And shouted but once more aloud,
"My father! must I stay?"
While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud,
The wreathing fires made way.
They wrapt the ship in splendor wild,
They caught the flag on high,
And streamed above the gallant child,
Like banners in the sky.
There came a burst of thunder sound;
The boy, Oh! where was he?
Ask of the winds, that far around
With fragments strewed the sea,
With shroud and mast and pennon fair, That well had borne their part,
But the noblest thing that perished there Was that young, faithful heart.
The heart of the sleeper beats high in his breast; Of thy fair yellow locks threads of amber be Joy quickens his pulse, all his hardships seem
And under reefed foresail we 'll scud: Avast! nor don't think me a milksop so soft To be taken for trifles aback;
Like mountains the billows tremendously swell; For they say there's a Providence sits up aloft,
In vain the lost wretch calls on mercy to save; Unseen hands of spirits are ringing his knell, And the death-angel flaps his broad wing o'er the wave!
O sailor-boy, woe to thy dream of delight! In darkness dissolves the gay frost-work of bliss.
Where now is the picture that Fancy touched bright,
Thy parents' fond pressure, and love's honeyed kiss?
O sailor-boy! sailor-boy! never again
Shall home, love, or kindred thy wishes repay; Unblessed and unhonored, down deep in the main,
Full many a fathom, thy frame shall decay.
No tomb shall e'er plead to remembrance for thee,
Or redeem form or fame from the merciless surge;
But the white foam of waves shall thy windingsheet be,
To keep watch for the life of poor Jack!
I heard our good chaplain palaver one day
About souls, heaven, mercy, and such;
And, my timbers! what lingo he 'd coil and belay;
Why, 't was just all as one as High Dutch;
For he said how a sparrow can't founder, d'ye see,
Without orders that come down below;
And a many fine things that proved clearly to me
That Providence takes us in tow:
"For," says he, do you mind me, "let storms e'er so oft
Take the topsails of sailors aback, There's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft, To keep watch for the life of poor Jack !"
I said to our Poll, for, d'ye see, she would cry,
When last we weighed anchor for sea, "What argufies snivelling and piping your eye? Why, what a blamed fool you must be !
Can't you see, the world's wide, and there's room for us all,
Both for seamen and lubbers ashore ?
And winds in the midnight of winter thy And if to old Davy I should go, friend Poll, dirge!
On a bed of green sea-flowers thy limbs shall be laid,
You never will hear of me more.
What then? All's a hazard: come, don't be so
Perhaps I may laughing come back ;
Around thy white bones the red coral shall For, d' ye see, there's a cherub sits smiling aloft, To keep watch for the life of poor Jack !"
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