'Twas the returning tide, that afar from the waste of the

ocean,

With the first dawn of the day, came heaving and hurrying

landward.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

[From Twilight.]

LIKE the wings of sea-birds

Flash the white caps of the sea.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

[From The Saga of King Olaf, xiv.]

HE waters vast

THE

Filled them with a vague devotion,

With the freedom and the motion,

With the roll and roar of ocean

And the sounding blast.

H. W. LONGfellow.

[From Four by the Clock.]

THE heavy breathing of the sea

Is the only sound that comes to me.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

[From The Courtship of Miles Standish, iv.]

LIKE an awakened conscience, the sea was moaning

and tossing,

Beating remorseful and loud the mutable sands of the sea

shore.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

[From The Building of the Ship.]

THAT awful, pitiless sea,

With all its terror and mystery,

The dim, dark sea, so like unto death,

That divides and yet unites mankind!

H. W. LONGFellow.

The Ocean.

THE ocean, at the bidding of the Moon,
For ever changes with his restless tide;
Flung shoreward now, to be regather'd soon
With kingly pauses of reluctant pride,
And semblance of return. Anon from home
He issues forth again, high ridged and free;
The seething hiss of his tumultuous foam,
Like armies whispering where great echoes be?
Oh! 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 Saviour-tone of love!

CHARLES TENNYSON TURner.

The Quiet Tide near Ardrossan.

ON to the beach the quiet waters crept

But, though I stood not far within the land,
No tidal murmur reach'd me from the strand.
The mirror'd clouds beneath old Arran slept.
I look'd again across the watery waste:

The shores were full, the tide was near its height,
Though scarcely heard: the reefs were drowning fast,
And an imperial whisper told the might

Of the outer floods, that press'd into the bay,
Though all besides was silent. I delight

In the rough billows, and the foam-ball's flight:
I love the shore upon a stormy day;

But yet more stately were the power
and ease
That with a whisper deepen'd all the seas.

C. T. TURNER.

[From Aurora Leigh, Book iii.]

HE sea, that blue end of the world,

THE

That fair scroll-finis of a wicked book.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

[From Aurora Leigh, Book vii.]

AND lo, the city of Marseilles,

With all her ships behind her, and beyond,

The scimitar of ever-shining sea,

For right-hand use, bared blue against the sky!

E. B. BROWNING.

[From The Soul's Travelling.]

MIGHTY Sea,

Can we dwarf thy magnitude

And fit it to our straitest mood?

E. B. BROWNING.

[From a Sea-side Walk.]

AND shining with a gloom, the water grey

Swang in its moon-taught way.

E. B. BROWNING.

[From A Sabbath Morning at Sea.]

TOO strait ye are, capacious seas,

To satisfy the loving!

E. B. BROWNING.

[From Written in Edinburgh.]

AND the broad sea beyond, in calm or rage,

Chainless alike, and teaching Liberty.

ARTHUR HENRY HALLAM.

[From At Venice.]

HEN the proud sea, for Venice' sake,

WHEN

Itself consents to wear

The semblance of a land-locked lake,

Inviolably fair;

And in the dalliance of her Isles,

Has levelled his strong waves,

Adoring her with tenderer wiles,

Than his own pearly caves,

Surely may we to similar calm,

Our noisy lives subdue,

And bare our bosoms to such balm

As God has given to few: