Alas! to her high place, through sea-deep tears,
Earth wins her long, slow, agonizing way;
The base, triumphant despot of a day
Is weary Anarch of a thousand years.
And yet this many a spring the boughs are sheen
With the almost forgotten bloom. Call, Sea,
Unto all faithful souls, Doubt not,
Aspire to lead earth's struggling thought
bring what from full hearts gushes free; He, who doth blend and shape the whole, finds nothing
When morning, loosing from its crimson drifts,
O'ertakes some panting melody, most tender
Of such weak rivalship, and prone to render
Homage unto great-heartedness,
The breaking strain, and all along its lines
Of thrilling light, its currents of pure air
And rosy mists, winds it at will
Unites and separates, and still
Wreathes it and builds anew beyond despair; Till song is light — light, song-through all heaven's steadfast signs.
O know how all things change! Night's violet star Erewhile bloomed red; and thou, Sea, wear'st away The glorious realm of a forgotten day,
But lay'st the pillars of a fairer far,
Deep in thy caverned bed. For all that ever
Gathered about it men's delight or love,
Or aught that simply blooms or strives
To make more beautiful our lives,
In each new fabric of the world, is wove
Afresh, and changes like the light, but passes never.
THOU art sounding on, thou mighty sea,
For ever and the same!
The ancient rocks yet ring to thee,
Whose thunders nought can tame.
Oh! many a glorious voice is gone,
From the rich bowers of earth,
And hush'd is many a lovely one
Of mournfulness or mirth.
The Dorian flute that sighed of yore
Along thy wave, is still;
The harp of Judah peals no more
On Zion's awful hill.
And Memnon's lyre hath lost the chord
That breath'd the mystic tone,
And the songs, at Rome's high triumphs pour'd, Are with her eagles flown.
And mute the Moorish horn, that rang
O'er stream and mountain free,
And the hymn the leagued Crusaders sang, Hath died in Galilee.
But thou art swelling on, thou deep,
Through many an olden clime,
Thy billowy anthem, ne'er to sleep
Until the close of time.
Thou liftest up thy solemn voice
To every wind and sky,
And all our earth's green shores rejoice
In that one harmony.
It fills the noontide's calm profound,
The sunset's heaven of gold;
And the still midnight hears the sound,
Even as when first it roll'd.
Let there be silence deep and strange,
Where sceptred cities rose!
Thou speak'st of One who doth not change
- So may our hearts repose.
THE sea is mighty, but a Mightier sways
His restless billows. Thou, whose hands have scooped
His boundless gulfs and built his shore, thy breath
That moved in the beginning o'er his face
Moves o'er it evermore. The obedient waves
To its strong motion roll, and rise and fall.
Still from that realm of rain a cloud goes up,
As at the first, to water the great earth,
And keep her valleys green. A hundred realms
Watch its broad shadow warping on the wind,
And in the dropping shower, with gladness hear
Thy promise of the harvest. I look forth
Over the boundless blue, where joyously
The bright crests of innumerable waves
Glance to the sun at once, as when the hands
Of a great multitude are upward flung
In acclamation. I behold the ships
Gliding from cape to cape, from isle to isle,
Or stemming towards far lands, or hastening home
From the old world. It is thy friendly breeze
That bears them, with the riches of the land,
And treasure of dear lives, till in the port
The shouting seaman climbs and furls the sail.
But who shall bide thy tempest, who shall face
The blast that wakes the fury of the sea?
O God! thy justice makes the world turn pale,
When on the armed fleet, that royally
Bears down the surges, carrying war, to smite
Some city, or invade some thoughtless realm,
Descends the fierce tornado. The vast hulks
Are whirled like chaff upon the waves; the sails
Fly, rent like webs of gossamer; the masts
Are snapped asunder; downward from the decks,
Downward are slung, into the fathomless gulf,
Their cruel engines; and their hosts, arrayed
In trappings of the battle-field, are whelmed
By whirlpools, or dashed dead upon the rocks.
Then stand the nations still with awe, and pause,
A moment, from the bloody work of war.
These restless surges eat away the shores
Of earth's old continents; the fertile plain
Welters in shallows, headlands crumble down,
And the tide drifts the sea-sand in the streets
Of the drowned city. Thou, meanwhile, afar
In the green chambers of the middle sea,
Where broadest spread the waters and the line
Sinks deepest, while no eye beholds thy work,
Creator! thou dost teach the coral worm
To lay his mighty reefs. From age to age
He builds beneath the waters till at last
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