REFLECTION AT SEA.
1. See how beneath the moonbeam's smile
Yon little billow heaves its breast;
It foams and sparkles for a while,
And, murmuring, then subsides to rest.
2. So man, the sport of bliss and care,
Rises on Time's eventful sea,
And, having swell'd a moment there,
Thus melts into eternity.
Thomas Moore (1779-1852).
1. Unthinking, idle, wild and young,
I laugh'd, and talk'd, and danced, and sung:
And proud of health, of freedom vain,
Dream'd not of sorrow, care, or pain;
Concluding, in those hours of glee,
That all the world was made for me.
2. But when the days of trial came,
When sickness shook this trembling frame,
When folly's gay pursuits were o'er,
And I could dance and sing no more,
It then occurred how sad 'twould be,
Were this world only made for me.
Princess Amelia, daughter of George III. (1783 - 1810).
A WET SHEET AND A FLOWING SEA.
1. A wet sheet and a flowing sea,
A wind that follows fast
And fills the white and rustling sail,
And bends the gallant mast!
And bends the gallant mast, my boys,
While, like the eagle free,
Away the good ship flies, and leaves
Old England on the lee.
2. O for a soft and gentle wind!
I heard a fair one cry;
But give to me the swelling breeze,
And white waves heaving high:
The white waves heaving high, my lads,
The good ship tight and free;
The world of waters is our home,
And merry men are we.
3. There's tempest in yon hornèd moon,
And lightning in yon cloud;
And hark the music, mariners!
The wind is wakening loud.
The wind is wakening loud, my boys,
The lightning flashes free
The hollow oak our palace is,
Our heritage the sea.
Allan Cunningham (1785 -- 1842).
1. The sun is careering in glory and might
Mid the deep blue sky and the cloudlets white;
The bright wave is tossing its foam on high,
And the summer breezes go lightly by;
The air and the water dance, glitter, and play—
And why should not I be as merry as they?
2. The linnet is singing the wild wood through;
The fawn's bounding footstep skims over the dew;
The butterfly flits round the flowering tree;
And the cowslip and blue-bell are bent by the bee; All the creatures that dwell in the forest are gayAnd why should not I be as merry as they?
M. R. Mitford (1786 — 1855).
APOSTROPHE TO THE OCEAN.
1. Roll on, thou deep and dark-blue Ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin,-his control
Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groanWithout a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.
2. His steps are not upon thy paths, thy fields Are not a sport for him,—thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction, thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray,
And howling to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth; there let him lay.
3. The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war:
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into the yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.
4. Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee-
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?
Thy waters wasted them while they were free,
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou;
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play.
Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow: Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.
5. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time
Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving: boundless, endless, and sublime—
The image of Eternity-the throne
Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.
6. And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wantoned with thy breakers-they to me
Were a delight; and, if the freshening sea
Made them a terror-'twas a pleasing fear;
For I was as it were a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane-as I do here.
Lord Byron (1788 — 1824).
A BLIND BOY'S SONG.
1. Oh! tell me the form of the soft summer air,
That tosses so gently the curls of my hair!
It breathes on my lip, and it fans my warm cheek,
Yet gives me no answer, tho' often I speak.
I feel it play o'er me refreshing and kind,
Yet I cannot touch it-I'm blind! oh! I'm blind!
2. And music, what is it? and where does it dwell?
I sink, and I mount, with its cadence and swell;
While touch'd to my heart with its deep thrilling strain,
Till pleasure, till pleasure is turning to pain.
What brightness of hue is with music combined?
Will any one tell me? I'm blind! oh! I'm blind!
3. The perfumes of flowers that are hovering nigh,
What are they? On what kind of wings do they fly?
Are not they sweet angels, who come to delight
A poor little boy, that knows not of sight?
The sun, moon, and stars are to me undefined,
Oh! tell me what light is: I'm blind! oh! I'm blind!
Hannah F. Gould (1788-1865).
A BUTTERFLY ON A CHILD'S GRAVE.
1. A butterfly bask'd on a baby's grave,
Where a lily had chanced to grow:
Why art thou here, with thy gaudy dye,
When she of the blue and sparkling eye
Must sleep in the churchyard low?”
2. Then it lightly soar'd through the sunny air,
And spoke from its shining track :
"I was a worm till I won my wings,
And she whom thou mourn'st like a seraph sings:
Wouldst thou call the blest one back?"
Lydia Huntley Sigourney (1791 — 1865).
1. Was it a vine, with clusters white,
That clung round Buda's1 stateliest tower?
O no: it was a lady bright,
That hung upon an armèd knight—
It was their parting hour.
2. They had been wedded in their youth;
Together they had spent their bloom;
That hearts so long entwined in truth
1 Buda, or Ofen, the capital of the kingdom of Hungary, and a free city of the Austrian empire. It is situated on the right bank of the Danube, opposite Pesth.
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