In the dreary night to see
Nothing but the blood-red moon
Go up and down into the sea;
Or, in the loneliness of the day,
To see the still seals only
Solemnly lift their faces grey,

Making it yet more lonely?

Is it not better than to hear
Only the sliding of the wave
Beneath the plank, and feel so near
A cold and lonely grave,

A restless grave, where thou shalt lie
Even in death unquietly?

Look down beneath thy wave-worn bark,

Lean over the side and see

The leaden eye of the sidelong shark
Upturned patiently,

Ever waiting there for thee:

Look down and see those shapeless forms,

Which ever keep their dreamless sleep

Far down amid the gloomy deep,

And only stir themselves in storms,
Rising like islands from beneath,
And snorting through the angry spray,
As the frail vessel perisheth

In the whirls of their unwieldy play;
Look down! look down!

Upon the sea-weed, slimy and dark,

That waves its arms so lank and brown,

Beckoning for thee!

Look down beneath thy wave-worn bark
Into the cold depths of the sea!

Look down! look down!

Thus, on life's lonely sea,

Heareth the marinere

Voices sad, from far and near,

Ever singing full of fear,

Ever singing drearfully.

JAMES RUSSELL Lowell.

[From The Shore.]

THE

'HE roar of the limitless sea.

ROBERT, EARL OF LYTTON.

[From Sea-Side Elegiacs.]

WHEN, at the mid o' the night, high on the shadowy

land,

Mournfully watching the ghost-like waves, livid-lipp'd,hollowbreasted,

Sob over shingle and shell, here with my sorrow I stand. Weary of woe that is in them, fatigued by the violent weathers,

Feebly they tumble and toss, sadly they murmur and moan.

EARL OF LYTTON.

[From A Night in a Fisherman's Hut.]

HARK! the horses of ocean that crouch at my feet,

They are moaning in impotent pain on the beach!
EARL OF LYTTON.

[From The Journey.]

OY! O joy! the dawning sea

Joy!

Answers to the dawning sky;
Foretaste of the coming glee
When the sun will lord it high.
See the swelling radiance grow
To a dazzling glory-might!
Thoughtful shadows gently go
'Twixt the wave-tops wild with light!

Hear the strutting billows clang!

See the falling billows lean

Half a watery vault, and hang
Gleaming with translucent green—
Then in thousand fleeces lie,
Thundering light upon the strand !—
Vague it reached my doubting eye
Through the dusk, across the land.

GEORGE MACDONALD.

[From England and Louis Napoleon.]

How
HOW proud in peace,

The wild white horses rear and foam along.
GERALD MASSEY.

[From A Day at Craigcrook Castle.]

THE silvery-green and violet-sheen o' the sea

Changed into shifting opal tinct with gold;

And like an Alchymist with furnace-face
The sun smiled on his perfect work, pure gold.

GERALD MASSEY.

[From Nelson.]

LIKE one vast sapphire flashing light,

The sea, just breathing, shone.

GERALD MASSEY.

[From Modern Love.]

YONDER midnight ocean's force,

Thundering like ramping hosts of warrior horse,

To throw that faint thin line upon the shore.

GEORGE MEREDITH.

[From Sea Voices.]

PEACE, moaning Sea; what tale have you to tell?
What mystic tidings, all unknown before?
Whether you break in thunder on the shore,
Or whisper like the voice within the shell,
O moaning Sea, I know your burden well.

'Tis but the old dull tale, filled full of pain;
The finger on the dial-plate of time,
Advancing slow with pitiless beat sublime,
As stoops the day upon the fading plain;
And that has been which may not be again.

LEWIS MORRIS.

[From The Life and Death of Jason, Book iv.]

● BITTER sea, tumultuous sea,

Full many an ill is wrought by thee!—

Unto the wasters of the land

Thou holdest out thy wrinkled hand;

And when they leave the conquered town,

Whose black smoke makes thy surges brown,
Driven betwixt thee and the sun,

As the long day of blood is done,

From many a league of glittering waves
Thou smilest on them and their slaves.

"The thin bright-eyed Phoenician