THE SEA.

THE sea, the sea, the open sea,
The blue, the fresh, the ever free:
Without a mark, without a bound,

It runneth the earth's wide region round:
It plays with the clouds, it mocks the skies,
Or like a cradled creature lies.

I'm on the sea, I'm on the sea,

I am where I would ever be,

With the blue above and the blue below,
And silence whereso'er I go.

If a storm should come and awake the deep,
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.

I love, O how I love to ride

On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
Where every mad wave drowns the moon,
And whistles aloft its tempest tune:
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the south-west wind doth blow.
I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved the great sea more and more,
And backward flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh her mother's nest;
And a mother she was and is to me,
For I was born on the open sea.

The waves were white, and red the morn,
In the noisy hour when I was born;
The whale it whistled, the porpoise roll'd,
And the dolphins bared their backs of gold;
And never was heard such an outery wild,
As welcom'd to life the ocean child.

I have lived since then in calm and strife,
Full fifty summers a rover's life,

With wealth to spend, and a power to range,
But never have sought or sighed for change;
And death, whenever he comes to me,
Shall come on the wide unbounded sea!

MOUNTAIN SCENERY.

THOU, Who would'st see the lovely and the wild
Mingled, in harmony, on Nature's face,

Ascend our rocky mountains.

Let thy foot

Fail not with weariness, for, on their tops,

The beauty and the majesty of earth,

Spread wide beneath, shall make thee to forget
The steep and toilsome way. There, as thou stand'st,
The haunts of men below thee, and, above,
The mountain summits, thy expanding heart
Shall feel a kindred with that loftier world,
To which thou art translated, and partake
The enlargement of thy vision. Thou shalt look
Upon the green and rolling forest tops,

And down into the secrets of the glens

And streams, that, with their bordering thickets, strive

To hide their windings. Thou shalt gaze, at once,
Here on white villages, and tilth, and herds,
And swarming roads; and, there, on solitudes,
That only hear the torrent, and the wind,
And eagle's shriek....There is a precipice,
That seems a fragment of some mighty wall,
Built by the hand that fashion'd the old world,

To separate its nations, and thrown down
When the floods drown'd them. To the north, a path
Conducts you up the narrow battlement.
Steep is the western side, shaggy and wild
With mossy trees, and pinnacles of flint,
And many a hanging crag. But, to the east,
Sheer to the vale, go down the bare old cliffs,-
Huge pillars, that, in middle heaven, upbear
Their weather-beaten capitals, here dark
With the thick moss of centuries, and there
Of chalky whiteness, where the thunderbolt
Has splinter'd them. It is a fearful thing
To stand upon the beetling verge, and see
Where storm and lightning, from that huge gray wall,
Have tumbled down vast blocks, and, at the base,
Dash'd them in fragments; and to lay thine ear
Over the dizzy depth, and hear the sound
Of winds, that struggle with the woods below,
Come up like ocean murmurs. But the scene
Is lovely round. A beautiful river there
Wanders amid the fresh and fertile meads,
The paradise he made unto himself,
Mining the soil for ages. On each side
The fields swell upward to the hills; beyond,
Above the hills, in the blue distance, rise

The mighty columns with which earth props heaven.

BRYANT.

FAR AT SEA.

A THOUSAND miles from land are we,
Tossing about on the roaring sea;
From billow to bounding billow cast,
Like fleecy snow on the stormy blast:

The sails are scatter'd abroad, like weeds,
The strong masts shake, like quivering reeds,
The mighty cables, and iron chains,

The hull, which all earthly strength disdains,
They strain and they crack, and hearts like stone
Their natural hard, proud strength disown.

Up and down! up and down!

From the base of the wave to the billow's crown, And, amidst the flashing and feathery foam, The stormy petrel finds a home,—

A home, if such a place may be,

For her who lives on the wide, wide sea,

On the craggy ice, in the frozen air;

And only seeketh her rocky lair

To warm her young, and to teach them to spring At once o'er the waves on their stormy wing!

O'er the deep! o'er the deep!

[fish sleep, Where the whale, and the shark, and the swordOutflying the blast and the driving rain,

The petrel telleth her tale-in vain ;
For the mariner curseth the warning bird

Who bringeth him news of the storm unheard!
Ah! thus doth the prophet of good or ill
Meet hate from the creatures he serveth still!
Yet he ne'er falters :-So, petrel! spring

Once more o'er the waves on thy stormy wing!
BARRY CORNWALL.

THE OCEAN.

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 groan, Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd,and unknown.

The armaments which thunder-strike 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 thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save theeAssyria, 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.

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.