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Ah! meagre happiness! and hopes that reach
To some dull dream, a vapor of the sense
And, on the plain of the old Permanence,
Are but as hasty sunshine in the beach

Of idle footprints! O make more divine
Dim sea, our thoughts! nor may we dully grope
Mid slavish fears, while thou dost girth

All continents and isles with mirth,

And music of unconquerable hope

That Light and Freedom shall be earth's, as they are thine.

Oh, old Consoler! that dost tenderly

In thy great longing merge my day-born pain,
Uplift me to the stature of your strain,

And bid all vulgar aspirations flee!

The nobler earth is built of stubborn good;
Who brings his little vanity, his grave

Appeal to men's applause or wonder,

Warn him away with thy deep thunder!

Flash o'er the graven sands a liberal wave
And let us know no more his memory or his blood!

Mild, herald beams, wooing the folded sight,

Shed warmth far down in many a sunless nook. Thank God, there are no eyes in which we look, But some heart's love doth lend them beauteous light! Dreams that prefigure hopes, and hopes that take Fresh courage from all life-from starlight bold, Sung softly in by whippoorwills

From sunset's broad'ning sails, o'er hills

Afar and from the earth that grows not old,

Float lightly o'er our heads, whether we sleep or wake

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

Still up ;-bring what from full hearts gushes free ;
He, who doth blend and shape the whole, finds nothing

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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, it lifts
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.

ANNE WHITNEY.

THE SOUND OF THE SEA.

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.

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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 —

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HYMN OF THE SEA.

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,

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