The silver margin which aye runneth round The moon-enchanted sea, hath here no sound; Even Echo speaks not on these radiant moors!
What is the Giant of the ocean dead,
Whose strength was all unmatch'd beneath the sun? No: he reposes! Now his toils are done; More quiet than the babbling brooks is he. So mightiest powers by deepest calms are fed, And sleep, how oft, in things that gentlest be! B. W. PROCTER.
[From Marcian Colonna, Part iii.]
THOU vast Ocean! Ever-sounding Sea!
Thou symbol of a drear immensity! Thou thing that windest round the solid world Like a huge animal, which, downward hurl'd From the black clouds, lies weltering and alone, Lashing and writhing till its strength be gone. Thy voice is like the thunder, and thy sleep Is as a giant's slumber, loud and deep. Thou speakest in the East and in the West At once, and on thy heavily-laden breast Fleets come and go, and shapes that have no life Or motion, yet are moved and meet in strife. . . -Thou only, terrible Ocean, hast a power,
A will, a voice, and in thy wrathful hour, When thou dost lift thine anger to the clouds, A fearful and magnificent beauty shrouds
Thy broad green forehead. If thy waves be driven Backwards and forwards by the shifting wind,
How quickly dost thou thy great strength unbind, And stretch thine arms, and war at once with Heaven.
Thou trackless and immeasurable Main !
On thee no record ever lived again
To meet the hand that writ it: line nor lead Hath ever fathomed thy profoundest deeps, Where haply the huge monster swells and sleeps, King of his watery limit, who 'tis said Can move the mighty ocean into storm- Oh! wonderful thou art, great element : And fearful in thy spleeny humours bent, And lovely in repose; thy summer form Is beautiful, and when thy silver waves Make music in earth's dark and winding caves, I love to wander on thy pebbled beach, Marking the sunlight at the evening hour,
And hearken to the thoughts thy waters teach- "Eternity, Eternity, and Power."
[From The Course of Time, Book vii.]
GREAT Ocean! strongest of creation's sons,
Unconquerable, unreposed, untired;
That roll'd the wild, profound, eternal bass, In Nature's anthem, and made music, such
As pleased the ear of God! Original, Unmarr'd, unfaded work of Deity; And unburlesqued by mortal's puny skill. From age to age, enduring and unchanged: Majestical, inimitable, vast,
Loud uttering satire day and night on each Succeeding race, and little pompous work Of man. Unfallen, religious, holy sea!
Thou bow'dst thy glorious head to none, fear'dst none, Heard'st none, to none did'st honour, but to God
Thy Maker-only worthy to receive
Thy great obeisance. Undiscover'd sea! Into thy dark, unknown, mysterious caves, And secret haunts, unfathomably deep Beneath all visible retired, none went, And came again, to tell the wonders there. Tremendous Sea! what time thou lifted up
Thy waves on high, and with thy winds and storms Strange pastime took, and shook thy mighty sides Indignantly, the pride of navies fell;
Beyond the arm of help, unheard, unseen,
Sunk friend and foe, with all their wealth and war ; And on thy shores, men of a thousand tribes, Polite and barbarous, trembling stood, amazed, Confounded, terrified, and thought vast thoughts Of ruin, boundlessness, omnipotence,
Infinitude, eternity; and thought
And wonder'd still, and grasp'd and grasp'd and grasp'd
Again; beyond her reach exerting all
The soul to take thy great idea in,
To comprehend incomprehensible;
And wonder'd more, and felt their littleness. Self-purifying, unpolluted Sea!
Lover unchangeable! thy faithful breast For ever heaving to the lovely moon,
That like a shy and holy virgin, robed
In saintly white, walk'd nightly in the heavens, And to the everlasting serenade
Gave gracious audience, nor was woo'd in vain.
[From The Course of Time, Book iv.]
E [Byron] laid his hand upon "the Ocean's mane," And played familiar with his hoary locks.
[From The Child of the Sea.]
T was a summer evening; and the sea
Seem'd to rejoice in its tranquillity;
Rolling its gentle waters to the west,
Till the rich crimson blush'd upon their breast, Uniting lovingly the wave and sky,
Like Hope content in its delight to die.
LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON.
[From As o'er the Deep the Seaman Roves.]
S o'er the deep the seaman roves
With cloud and storm above him,
Far, far from all the smiles he loves, And all the hearts that love him, 'Tis sweet to find some friendly mast O'er that same ocean sailing, And listen in the hollow blast To hear the pilot's hailing.
On rolls the sea! and brief the bliss, And farewell follows greeting; On rolls the sea! one hour is his
For parting and for meeting; And who shall tell, on sea or shore, In sorrow or in laughter,
If he shall see that vessel more,
Or hear that voice hereafter?
[From Death's Jest Book, Act i.]
sea to sea! The calm is o'er ;
The wanton water leaps in sport,
And rattles down the pebbly shore;
The dolphin wheels, the sea-cows snort,
And unseen mermaid's pearly song
Comes bubbling up, the weeds among.
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