God be with thee, gladsome Ocean! How gladly greet I thee once more! Ships, and waves, and ceaseless motion, And men rejoicing on thy shore.
Dissuading spake the mild physician,
'Those briny waves for thee are death! But my soul fulfilled her mission,
And lo! I breathe untroubled breath!
Fashion's pining sons and daughters
Who seek the crowd they seem to fly, Trembling they approach thy waters;
And what cares Nature, if they die?
Me a thousand hopes and pleasures,
A thousand recollections bland,
Thoughts sublime and stately measures,
Revisit on thy echoing strand:
Dreams (the soul herself forsaking),
Tearful raptures, boyish mirth;
Silent adorations, making
A blessed shadow of this earth!
O ye hopes, that stir within me,
Health comes with you from above!
God is with me, God is in me!
I cannot die, if Life be Love.
WHITE-CAPT waves far round the Ocean,
Leaping in thanks or leaping in play,
All your bright faces, in happy commotion,
Make glad matins this summer day.
The rosy light through the morning's portals Tinges your crests with an August hue; Calling on us, thought-prisoned mortals, Thus to live in the moment too.
For, graceful creatures, you live by dying,
Save your life, when you fling it away,
Flow through all forms, all form defying,
And in wildest freedom strict rule obey.
Show us your art, O genial daughters
Of solemn Ocean, thus to combine Freedom and force of rolling waters With sharp observance of law divine.
SEA-VIEW FROM ST. LEONARD'S.
HAIL to thy face and odors, glorious Sea! 'Twere thanklessness in me to bless thee not, Great beauteous Being! in whose breath and smile My heart beats calmer, and my very mind Inhales salubrious thoughts. How welcomer Thy murmurs than the murmurs of the world! Though like the world thou fluctuatest, thy din To me is peace, thy restlessness repose. Ev'n gladly I exchange yon spring-green lanes With all the darling field-flowers in their prime, And gardens haunted by the nightingale's Long trills and gushing ecstacies of song, For these wild headlands and the sea-mew's clang.
With thee beneath my windows, pleasant sea!
I long not to o'erlook earth's fairest glades
And green savannahs: Earth has not a plain
So boundless or so beautiful as thine.
The eagle's vision cannot take it in :
The lightning's wing, too weak to sweep its space, Sinks half-way o'er it like a wearied bird:
It is the mirror of the stars, where all
Their hosts within the concave firmament,
Gay marching to the music of the spheres,
Can see themselves at once.
Nor on the stage
Of rural landscape are there lights and shades
Of more harmonious dance and play than thine.
How vividly this moment brightens forth,
Between gray parallel and leaden breadths,
A belt of hues that stripes thee many a league,
Flush'd like the rainbow, or the ring-dove's neck,
And giving to the glancing sea-bird's wing
The semblance of a meteor.
Mighty sea!
Cameleon-like thou changest, but there's love
In all thy change, and constant sympathy
With yonder sky-thy Mistress; from her brow
Thou tak'st thy moods, and wear'st her colors on
Thy faithful bosom; morning's milky white,
Noon's sapphire, or the saffron glow of eve;
And all thy balmier hours, fair Element!
Have such divine complexion-crisped smiles,
Luxuriant heavings, and sweet whisperings, -
That little is the wonder, Love's own Queen
From thee of old was fabled to have sprung.
Creation's common! which no human power
Can parcel or enclose; the lordliest floods
And cataracts, that the tiny hands of man
Can tame, conduct, or bound, are drops of dew
To thee, that could'st subdue the Earth itself,
And brook'st commandment from the heavens alone For marshalling thy waves.
Yet, potent sea! How placidly thy moist lips speak ev'n now Along yon sparkling shingles! Who can be So fanciless, as to feel no gratitude
That power and grandeur can be so serene,
Soothing the home-bound navy's peaceful way,
And rocking ev'n the fisher's little bark
As gently as a mother rocks her child?
Earth has her gorgeous towns; the earth-circling sea
Has spires and mansions more amusive still
Men's volant homes, that measure liquid space
On wheel or wing. The chariot of the land,
With pain'd and panting steeds and clouds of dust,
Has no sight-gladdening motion like these fair
Careerers with the foam beneath their bows,
Whose streaming ensigns charm the waves by day,
Whose carols and whose watch-bells cheer the night,
Moor'd as they cast the shadows of their masts
In long array, or hither flit and yond
Mysteriously with slow and crossing lights,
Like spirits on the darkness of the deep.
There is a magnet-like attraction in
These waters to the imaginative power,
That links the viewless with the visible,
And pictures things unseen. To realms beyond
Yon highway of the world my fancy flies,
When by her tall and triple mast we know
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