VII.

THE SEA.

THE SEA.

BEHOLD the Sea,

The opaline, the plentiful and strong,
Yet beautiful as is the rose in June,
Fresh as the trickling rainbow of July:
Sea full of food, the nourisher of kinds,
Purger of earth, and medicine of men;
Creating a sweet climate by my breath,
Washing out harms and griefs from memory,
And, in my mathematic ebb and flow,
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.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

THE SEA.

66
FROM CHILDE HAROLD," CANTO IV.

THERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel

What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean,-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin,-his control
Stops with the shore;-upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,

He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths,-thy fields Are not a spoil for him,-thou dost arise

. And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields

For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray
And howling, to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,

And dashest him again to earth:-there let him lay.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake And monarchs tremble in their capitals, The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain title take Of lord of thee and arbiter of war,These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee;

Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?

Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou; Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play, Time writes no wrinkles on thine azure brow; Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form

Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,

Calm or convulsed,-in breeze, or gale, or

storm,

Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime

Dark-heaving; boundless, endless, and sublime, The image of Eternity,-the throne

Of the Invisible! even from out thy slime

The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a boy I wantoned with thy breakers, they to me Were a delight; and if the freshening sea Made them a terror, 't was a pleasing fear; For I was as it were a child of thee, And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane,

-as I do here.

LORD BYRON.

THE SEA.

BEAUTIFUL, sublime, and glorious;
Mild, majestic, foaming, free,-
Over time itself victorious,

Image of eternity!

Sun and moon and stars shine o'er thee,

See thy surface ebb and flow,

Yet attempt not to explore thee
In thy soundless depths below.

Whether morning's splendors steep thee
With the rainbow's glowing grace,
Tempests rouse, or navies sweep thee,
"T is but for a moment's space.

Earth, her valleys and her mountains,
Mortal man's behests obey;

The unfathomable fountains

Scoff his search and scorn his sway.

Such art thou, stupendous Ocean!
But, if overwhelmed by thee,
Can we think, without emotion,

What must thy Creator be?

BERNARD BARTON.

THE DISAPPOINTED LOVER.

66

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 are clothed with the sun and the rain, Thy sweet hard kisses are strong like wine, Thy large embraces are keen like pain.