THE SEA

THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES

O 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 Mermaids' pearly song Comes bubbling up, the weeds among. Fling broad the sail, dip deep the oar: To sea, to sea! the calm is o'er.

To sea, to sea! our white-wing'd bark
Shall billowy cleave its watery way,
And with its shadow, fleet and dark,
Break the caved Triton's azure day,
Like mountain eagle soaring light
O'er antelopes on Alpine height:

The anchor heaves, the ship swings free,
Our sails swell full. To sea, to sea!

BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE

CHARLES WOLFE

OT a drum was heard, not a funeral note,
As his corse to the rampart we hurried;
Not a soldier discharged his farewell shot
O'er the grave where our hero we buried.

We buried him darkly at dead of night,
The sods with our bayonets turning;
By the struggling moonbeam's misty light,
And the lantern dimly burning.

No useless coffin enclosed his breast,

Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him;
But he lay like a warrior taking his rest
With his martial cloak around him.

Few and short were the prayers we said,
And we spoke not a word of sorrow;
But we steadfastly gazed on the face that was dead,
And we bitterly thought of the morrow.

We thought, as we hollowed his narrow bed,

And smoothed down his lonely pillow,

That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, And we far away on the billow!

Lightly they'll talk of the spirit that's gone,
And o'er his cold ashes upbraid him—
But little he'll reck, if they let him sleep on,
In the grave where a Briton has laid him.

But half of our heavy task was done,

When the clock struck the hour for retiring; And we heard the distant and random gun, That the foe was sullenly firing.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down,

From the field of his fame fresh and gory; We carved not a line, and we raised not a stone But we left him alone with his glory.

THE SEA-FOWLER

MARY HOWITT

HE baron hath the landward park, the fisher hath

THE

the sea;

But the rocky haunts of the sea-fowl belong alone to me.

The baron hunts the running deer, the fisher nets the brine;

But every bird that builds a nest on ocean-cliffs is mine.

Come on then, Jock and Alick, let's to the sea-rocks bold:

I was train'd to take the sea-fowl ere I was five years old.

The wild sea roars, and laskes the granite crags below, And round the misty islets the loud, strong tempests blow.

And let them blow! Roar wind and wave, they shall not me dismay;

I've faced the eagle in her nest and snatch'd her young

away.

The eagle shall not build her nest, proud bird although she be,

Nor yet the strong-wing'd cormorant, without the leave.

of me.

The eider-duck has laid her eggs, the tern doth hatch her young,

And the merry gull screams o'er her brood; but all to me belong.

Away then in the daylight, and back again ere eve; The eagle could not rear her young, unless I gave her leave.

The baron hath the landward park, the fisher hath the

sea;

But the rocky haunts of the sea-fowl belong alone to me.