Look 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!
BARRY CORNWALL,
We stood upon the ragged rocks,
When the long day was nearly done;
The waves had ceased their sullen shocks,
And lapped our feet with murmuring tone,
And o'er the bay in streaming locks
Blew the red tresses of the sun.
Along the West the golden bars
Still to a deeper glory grew;
Above our heads the faint, few stars
Looked out from the unfathomed blue:
And the far city's clamorous jars
Seemed melted in that evening hue.
O sunset sky! O purple tide!
O friends to friends that closer pressed! Those glories have in darkness died,
And ye have left my longing breast. I could not keep you by my side,
Nor fix that radiance in the West.
Upon those rocks the waves shall beat
With the same low and murmuring strain,
Across those waves, with glancing feet,
The sunset rays shall seek the main;
But when together shall we meet
Upon that far-off shore again?
WE walked beside the sea,
After a day which perished silently
Of its own glory,-like the Princess weird,
Who combating the Genius, scorched and seared,
Uttered with burning breath, Ho, victory!'
And sank adown, an heap of ashes pale.
So runs the Arab tale.
The sky above us showed
An universal and unmoving cloud,
On which the cliffs permitted us to see
Only the outlines of their majesty,
As master-minds, when gazed at by the crowd:
And shining with a gloom, the water gray
Swang in its morn-taught way.
Nor moon nor stars were out,
They did not dare to tread so soon about,
Though trembling in the footsteps of the sun.
The light was neither night's nor day's, but one
Which, lifelike, had a beauty in its doubt;
And Silence's impassioned breathings round
Seemed wandering into sound.
O solemn-beating heart
Of Nature! I have knowledge that thou art
Bound unto man's by cords he cannot sever,
And what time they are slackened by him ever,
So to attest his own supernal part,
Still runneth thy vibration, fast and strong,
The slackened cord along.
For though we never spoke
Of the gray water and the shaded rock, —
Dark wave and stone, unconsciously, were fused
Into the plaintive speaking that we used
Of absent friends and memories unforsook;
And, had we seen each other's face, we had
Seen, haply, each was sad.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.
SPIRIT that breathest through my lattice, thou
That cool'st the twilight of the sultry day!
Gratefully flows thy freshness round my brow;
Thou hast been out upon the deep at play,
Riding all day the wild blue waves till now,
Roughening their crests, and scattering high their
spray,
And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee
To the scorch'd land, thou wanderer of the sea!
Nor I alone a thousand bosoms round
Inhale thee in the fulness of delight;
And languid forms rise up, and pulses bound
Livelier, at coming of the wind of night;
And languishing to hear thy welcome sound,
Lies the vast inland, stretch'd beyond the sight.
Go forth, into the gathering shade; go forth,-
GOD's blessing breathed upon the fainting earth!
Go, rock the little wood-bird in his nest,
Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouse The wide, old wood from his majestic rest, Summoning, from the innumerable boughs,
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