THE OCEAN.
THE Ocean at the bidding of the moon
Forever changes with his restless tide :
Flung shoreward now, to be regathered soon
With kingly pauses of reluctant pride,
And semblance of return. Anon from home
He issues forth anew, high ridged and free,
The gentlest murmur of his seething foam
Like armies whispering where great echoes be.
O, leave me here upon this beach to rove,
Mute listener to that sound so grand and lone!
A glorious sound, deep drawn, and strongly
thrown,
And reaching those on mountain heights above,
To British ears (as who shall scorn to own?)
A tutelar fond voice, a savior tone of love.
CHARLES TURNER.
I have seen
;
A curious child, who dwelt upon a tract
Of inland ground, applying to his ear
The convolutions of a smooth-lipped shell
To which, in silence hushed, his very soul
Listened intensely; and his countenance soon
Brightened with joy; for from within were heard
Murmurings, whereby the monitor expressed
Mysterious union with its native sea.
Even such a shell the universe itself
Is to the ear of Faith; and there are times,
I doubt not, when to you it doth impart
Authentic tidings of invisible things;
Of ebb and flow, and ever-during power;
And central peace, subsisting at the heart
Of endless agitation.
The Excursion, Book iv.
Ye gentlemen of England
That live at home at ease,
Ah! little do you think upon
The dangers of the seas.
Ye Gentlemen of England.
O pilot! 't is a fearful night,
There's danger on the deep.
The Pilot.
God moves in a mysterious way
His wonders to perform;
He plants his footsteps in the sea
And rides upon the storm.
Light shining out of Darkness.
THE LOW COUNTRIES.
To men of other minds my fancy flies,
Embosomed in the deep where Holland lies.
Methinks her patient sons before me stand,
Where the broad Ocean leans against the land,
And, sedulous to stop the coming tide,
Lift the tall rampire's artificial pride.
Onward methinks, and diligently slow,
The firm connected bulwark seems to grow,
Spreads its long arms amidst the watery roar,
Scoops out an empire, and usurps the shore.
While the pent Ocean, rising o'er the pile,
Sees an amphibious world beneath him smile;
The slow canal, the yellow-blossomed vale,
The willow-tufted bank, the gliding sail,
Fierce o'er the wreck the whelming waters The crowded mart, the cultivated plain,
A new creation rescued from his reign.
passed,
The Traveller.
The helpless crew sunk in the roaring main!
The Mariner.
MRS. ANNE RADCLIFFE.
Seas
Rough with black winds, and storms
Unwonted.
Book i. Ode 5. Translation of MILTON.
Her deck is crowded with despairing souls,
And in the hollow pauses of the storm
We hear their piercing cries.
Bertram.
A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry
Of some strong swimmer in his agony.
Don Juan, Cant. ii.
Dangerous rocks,
Which touching but my gentle vessel's side,
Would scatter all her spices on the stream,
Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks,
And, in a word, but even now worth this,
And now worth nothing.
Merchant of Venice, Acti. Sc. 1.
As rich..
As is the ooze and bottom of the sea
With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries.
SHAKESPEARE.
King Henry V., Act i. Sc. 2.
No, here's to the pilot that weathered the storm.
The Pilot that weathered the Storm.
G. CANNING.
As when the sea breaks o'er its bounds,
And overflows the level grounds,
Those banks and dams that like a screen
Did keep it out, now keep it in.
Hudibras.
O Victa Emmanuel the
Ki
King.
The sword be for thee, and the deed, And nought for the alien, next spring, nought for Hapsburg and Bourbon agreedy But, for us, a great Italy freed, With a hero to head us,.. our King Elizabeth Barrett Browning,
Man wants but little have below: "For wants that little. Long
Iis not with me exactly so:
But 'tis so, in the song.
My wants are many, and if toll.
Would muster many a fare:
And ware each wish a mint
a mint of gold
I still should long for
mara_
John Quincy Adarns.
Washington 21. August 1846
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