Fling broad the sail, dip deep the oar:
To sea, to sea! the calm is o'er.

To sea, to sea! our wide-winged bark
Shall billowy cleave its sunny way,
And with its shadow, fleet and dark,
Break the caved Tritons' azure day,
Like mighty eagle soaring light

O'er antelopes on Alpine height.

The anchor heaves, the ship swings free,

The sails swell full. To sea, to sea!

THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES.

[From Wood Notes, ii.]

THE

HE sea tosses and foams to find

Its way up to the cloud and wind.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

A

[From King Arthur, Book ix.]

LONELY ship-lone in the measureless sea,

Lone in the channel thro' the frozen steeps, Like some bold thought launch'd on infinity

By early sage-comes glimmering up the deeps! The dull wave, dirge-like, moans beneath the oar; The dull air heaves with wings that glide before.

Crash'd thro' the dreary air a thunder peal!

In their slow courses meet two ice-rock isles Clanging; the wide seas far-resounding reel; The toppling ruin rolls in the defiles;

The pent tides quicken with the headlong shock; Broad-billowing heave the long waves from the rock;

Far down the booming vales precipitous
Plunges the stricken galley,-as a steed
Smit by the shaft runs reinless,-o'er the prows
Howl the lash'd surges; man and monster freed
By power more awful from the savage fray,
Here roaring sink-there dumbly whirl away.

The water runs in mäelstroms,—as a reed
Spins in an eddy and then skirs along,—
Dragg'd round and round, emerged and vanishëd
The mighty ship amidst the mightier throng
Of the revolving hell. With abrupt spring
Bounding at last-on it shot maddening.

Behind it, thunderous swept the glacier masses,

Shivering and splintering, hurtling each on each: Narrower and narrower press the frowning passes :Jamm'd in the farthest gorge the bark may reach, Where the grim Scylla locks the direful way, The fierce Charybdis flings her mangled prey.

As if a living thing, in very part

The vessel groans-and with a dismal chime

Cracks to the cracking ice; asunder start

The brazen ribs :--and, clogg'd and freezing, climb Thro' cleft and chink, as thro' their native caves,

The gelid armies of the hardening waves.

EDWARD, LORD LYTTON.

E

[From The Image on the Tide.]

HE sense cannot count

THE

(As the waters glass

The forest and mount

And the clouds that pass)

The shadows and gleams

In that stilly deep,

Like the tranquil dreams

Of a hermit's sleep.

LORD LYTTON.

[From Travels of Theodore Elbert.]

NCE more, thou darkly rolling main,

ONCE

I bid thy lonely strength adieu;

And sorrowing leave thee once again,
Familiar long, yet ever new!

Thy many voices, which are one,

The varying garbs that robe thy might, Thy dazzling hues at set of sun,

Thy deeper loveliness by night;

The shades that flit with every breeze
Along thy hoar and agèd brow,—

What has the universe like these,

Or what so strong, so fair as thou?

JOHN STERLING.

The Tide rises, the Tide falls.

THE tide rises, the tide falls,

The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveller hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,

But the sea in the darkness calls and calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,

And the tide rises, the tide falls.

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;

The day returns, but never more
Returns the traveller to the shore,

And the tide rises, the tide falls.

HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.