It plays with the clouds, it mocks the skies, I am where I would ever be, With the blue above and the blue below, If a storm should come and awake the deep, I love, O, how I love to ride On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide, But I loved the great sea more and more, The waves were white, and red the morn, I have lived since then, in calm and strife, With wealth to spend, and a power to range, That moved in the beginning o'er his face, 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, His bulwarks overtop the brine, and check The long wave rolling from the southern pole To break upon Japan. Thou bid'st the fires, That smoulder under ocean, heave on high The new-made mountains, and uplift their peaks, A place of refuge for the storm-driven bird. The birds and wafting billows plant the rifts With herb and tree; sweet fountains gush; sweet airs Ripple the living lakes that, fringed with flow THE SEA. BEAUTIFUL, sublime, and glorious; Sun and moon and stars shine o'er thee, In thy soundless depths below. Earth, her valleys and her mountains, Mortal man's behests obey; The unfathomable fountains Scoff his search and scorn his sway. Now dark with the fresh-blowing gale, While soft o'er thy bosom the cloud-shadows sail, There are, gloomy Ocean, a brotherless clan, Who traverse thy banishing waves, From the homes of their kindred, their forefathers' graves, Love, friendship, and conjugal bliss, Demands of the spoiler his share of the prey. Then joy to the tempest that whelms them beneath, Where the vultures and vampires of Mammon resort; Where Europe exultingly drains And the breezes that rock the light cradle of morn The life-blood from Africa's veins ; Are sweet as the Phoenix's pyre. O regions of beauty, of love and desire! Where man rules o'er man with a merciless rod, And spurns at his footstool the image of God! The hour is approaching, - a terrible hour! In a moment entombed in the horrible void, The blood of our ancestors nourished the tree; The voice of our fathers ascends from their oak. "Ye Britons, who dwell where we conquered of old, Who inherit our battle-field graves; Shall this be the fate of the cane-planted isles, Though poor were your fathers, — gigantic and But firm as our rocks, and as free as our waves, In the shipwreck of nations we stood up alone, ADDRESS TO THE OCEAN. O THOU vast Ocean! ever-sounding Sea! Ah me! what new prospects, new horrors arise? Thou thing that windest round the solid world I see the war-tempested flood All foaming, and panting with blood; For Britannia is wielding the trident to-day, And hurling her thunder with absolute sway Like a huge animal, which, downward hurled She triumphs; the winds and the waters con- The earth has naught of this: no chance or change spire To spread her invincible name; The universe rings with her fame; Ruffles its surface, and no spirits dare But the cries of the fatherless mix with her At will, and wound its bosom as they go: praise, Ever the same, it hath no ebb, no flow: And the tears of the widow are shed on her bays. But in their stated rounds the seasons come, And pass like visions to their wonted home; O Britain, dear Britain! the land of my birth; And come again, and vanish; the young Spring O Isle most enchantingly fair! Looks ever bright with leaves and blossoming; Thou Pearl of the Ocean! thou Gem of the Earth! And Winter always winds his sullen horn, O my Mother, my Mother, beware, For wealth is a phantom, and empire a snare! Thy distant dominions like wild graftings shoot, When the wild Autumn, with a look forlorn, The root of thine oak, O my country! that I love to wander on thy pebbled beach, stands Rock-planted and flourishing free; Marking the sunlight at the evening hour, And hearken to the thoughts thy waters teach,— Its branches are stretched o'er the uttermost lands, Eternity - Eternity — and Power. And its shadow eclipses the sea. - BARRY CORNWALL. |