With clashing wheel, and lifting keel, When seas are silent and serene, The sunshine glimmering through the green Now, like a wild nymph, far apart To-night yon pilot shall not sleep, Before this smoky wreath has stained Hark! hark! I hear yon whistling shroud, I see yon quivering mast; The black throat of the hunted cloud Is panting forth the blast! An hour, and, whirled like winnowing chaff, Yet rest, ye wanderers of the deep; Sleep on, and when the morning light O, think of those for whom the night Oliver Wendell Holmes. 0 THE ATLANTIC CABLE. LONELY bay of Trinity, O dreary shores, give ear! Lean down unto the white-lipped sea From world to world his couriers fly, Rides down the sunken wire. What saith the herald of the Lord? "The world's long strife is done; Close wedded by that mystic cord, Its continents are one. "And one in heart, as one in blood, The hands of human brotherhood "Through Orient seas, o'er Afric's plain And Asian mountains borne, The vigor of the Northern brain Shall nerve the world outworn. "From clime to clime, from shore to shore, Throb on, strong pulse of thunder! beat Fuse nations in thy kindly heat, And melt the chains of each! Wild terror of the sky above, Weave on, swift shuttle of the Lord, Beneath the deep so far, The bridal robe of earth's accord, The funeral shroud of war! For lo! the fall of Ocean's wall Space mocked and time outrun; The poles unite, the zones agree, The Christ is whispering, Peace! John Greenleaf Whittier. ROLL THE OCEAN. L on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean, roll! His steps are not upon thy paths; thy fields His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth: there let him lay. The armaments which thunderstrike the walls These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee: Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters washed them power 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 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. |