And flashes in the moonlight gleam,
And bright reflects the polar star.
The waves along the pebbly shore,
As blows the north wind, heave their foam,
And curl around the dashing oar,
As late the boatman hies him home.
How sweet, at set of sun, to view
Thy golden mirror spreading wide,
And see the mist of mantling blue
Float round the distant mountain's side!
At midnight hour, as shines the moon,
A sheet of silver spreads below,
And swift she cuts, at highest noon,
Light clouds, like wreaths of purest snow.
On thy fair bosom, silver lake,
O, I could ever sweep the oar,
When early birds at morning break,
And evening tells us toil is o'er:
PLENDORS of morning the billow-crests brighten,
Lighting and luring them on to the land, -
Far-away waves where the wan vessels whiten,
Blue rollers breaking in surf where we stand.
Curved like the necks of a legion of horses,
Each with his froth-gilded mane flowing free,
Hither they speed in perpetual courses,
Bearing thy riches, O beautiful sea!
Strong with the striving of yesterday's surges,
Lashed by the wanton winds leagues from the shore,
Each, driven fast by its follower, urges
Fearlessly those that are fleeting before;
How they leap over the ridges we walk on,
Flinging us gifts from the depths of the sea,
Silvery fish for the foam-haunting falcon,
Palm-weed and pearls for my darling and me!
Light falls her foot where the rift follows after,
Finer her hair than your feathery spray,
Sweeter her voice than your infinite laughter,—
Hist! ye wild coursers, list to my lay!
Deep in the chambers of grottoes auroral
Morn leaves her jewels and bends her bright knee;
Thence to my dear one your amber and coral
Bring for her dowry, O beautiful sea!
- Edmund Clarence Stedman.
CROSS the narrow beach we flit,
One little sandpiper and I;
And fast I gather, bit by bit,
The scattered driftwood, bleached and dry.
The wild waves reach their hands for it,
The wild wind raves, the tide runs high,
As up and down the beach we flit,-
One little sandpiper and I.
Above our heads the sullen clouds
Scud black and swift across the sky;
Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds
Stand out the white lighthouses high.
Almost as far as eye can reach
I see the close-reefed vessels fly,
As fast we flit along the beach,—
One little sandpiper and I.
I watch him as he skims along,
Uttering his sweet and mournful cry;
He starts not at my fitful song,
Or flash of fluttering drapery.
He has no thought of any wrong;
He scans me with a fearless eye;
Stanch friends are we, well tried and strong,
The little sandpiper and I.
Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night
When the loosed storm breaks furiously?
My driftwood fire will burn so bright!
To what warm shelter canst thou fly?
I do not fear for thee, though wroth
The tempest rushes through the sky;
For are we not God's children both,
Thou, little sandpiper, and I?
- Celia Leighton Thaxter.
The blue, the fresh, the ever free! Without a mark, without a bound,
It runneth the earth's wide regions 'round; It plays with the clouds, it mocks the skies, Or like a cradled creature lies.
I'm on the sea! I'm on the sea!
I am where I would ever be,
With the blue above, and the blue below,
And silence wheresoe'er I go.
If a storm should come and awake the deep,
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.
I love, oh, how I love to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
When every mad wave drowns the moon,
Or whistles aloft his tempest tune.
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the southwest blasts do blow!
I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved the great sea more and more,
And backward flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest;
And a mother she was and is to me,
For I was born on the open sea!
The waves were white, and red the morn,
In the noisy hour when I was born;
And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled,
And the dolphins bared their backs of gold;
And never was heard such an outcry wild
As welcomed to life the ocean child!
I've lived since then, in calm and strife,
Full fifty summers a sailor's life;
With wealth to spend and a power to range,
But never have sought nor sighed for change;
And Death, whenever he comes to me,
Shall come on the wild, unbounded sea!
- Bryan Waller Procter (Barry Cornwall).
FIELDS in June's fair verdure drest,
And vocal now with birds and bees!
A toiler from the world's highways
I turn, with willing feet, to these,
Inhaling here the morning breeze.
The air is moist with last night's rain,
Through op'ning clouds the sun appears,
|