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[Written at Scarborough, in the Summer of 1805.]

ALL hail to the ruins, the rocks, and the shores!
Thou wide-rolling Ocean, all hail!

Now brilliant with sunbeams and dimpled with

oars,

Now dark with the fresh-blowing gale,

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With the waters divided the land,
Ah! why hath Jehovah, in forming the world,

His ramparts of rocks round the continent
hurled,

And cradled the deep in his hand,

While soft o'er thy bosom the cloud-shadows sail, And leap o'er the bounds of his birth,

If man may transgress his eternal command,

And the silver-winged sea-fowl on high,

Like meteors bespangle the sky,

Or dive in the gulf, or triumphantly ride,

Like foam on the surges, the swans of the tide.

To ravage the uttermost earth,

And violate nations and realms that should be
Distinct as the billows, yet one as the sea?

From the tumult and smoke of the city set free, There are, gloomy Ocean, a brotherless clan,

With eager and awful delight,

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From the crest of the mountain I gaze upon thee,
I gaze,
For mine eye is illumined, my genius takes flight,
My soul, like the sun, with a glance
Embraces the boundless expanse,

and am changed at the sight;

And moves on thy waters, wherever they roll, From the day-darting zone to the night-shadowed pole.

My spirit descends where the dayspring is born,
Where the billows are rubies on fire,

And the breezes that rock the light cradle of

morn

Are sweet as the Phoenix's pyre.

O regions of beauty, of love and desire!

O gardens of Eden! in vain

Placed far on the fathomless main,

Who traverse thy banishing waves,
The poor
disinherited outcasts of man,
Whom Avarice coins into slaves.

From the homes of their kindred, their fore-
fathers' graves,

Love, friendship, and conjugal bliss,
They are dragged on the hoary abyss;

The shark hears their shrieks, and, ascending
to-day,

Demands of the spoiler his share of the prey.

Then joy to the tempest that whelms them beneath,

And makes their destruction its sport;

But woe to the winds that propitiously breathe,
And waft them in safety to port,

Where the vultures and vampires of Mammon
resort;

Where Nature with Innocence dwelt in her Where Europe exultingly drains

youth,

The life-blood from Africa's veins;

When pure was her heart and unbroken her Where man rules o'er man with a merciless rod, And spurns at his footstool the image of God!

truth.

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When the sun o'er the ocean descending in smiles, But firm as our rocks, and as free as our waves, Sinks softly and sweetly to rest?

No!-Father of mercy! befriend the opprest;
At the voice of thy gospel of peace
May the sorrows of Africa cease ;

And slave and his master devoutly unite

To walk in thy freedom and dwell in thy light!

As homeward my weary-winged Fancy extends
Her star-lighted course through the skies,
High over the mighty Atlantic ascends,
And turns upon Europe her eyes:

Ah me! what new prospects, new horrors, arise!
I see the war-tempested flood

All foaming, and panting with blood;
The panic-struck Ocean in agony roars,
Rebounds from the battle, and flies to his shores.

For Britannia is wielding the trident to-day,
Consuming her foes in her ire,

And hurling her thunder with absolute sway
From her wave-ruling chariots of fire.

She triumphs; the winds and the waters conspire
To spread her invincible name;
The universe rings with her fame ;

But the cries of the fatherless mix with her praise,

And the tears of the widow are shed on her bays.

O Britain, dear Britain! the land of my birth;

O Isle most enchantingly fair!

The spears of the Romans we broke,

We never stooped under their yoke.
In the shipwreck of nations we stood up alone,
The world was great Cæsar's, but Britain our
own."

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Thou Pearl of the Ocean! thou Gem of the And bends above our heads the flowering locust

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Serene and mild, the untried light

May have its dawning ;

And, as in summer's northern night

The evening and the dawn unite,

Bends like an arch of fire the glowing sunset sky!

So then, beach, bluff, and wave, farewell!
I bear with me

No token stone nor glittering shell,

But long and oft shall Memory tell

Of this brief thoughtful hour of musing by the Sea.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.

TWILIGHT AT SEA.

THE twilight hours, like birds, flew by,
As lightly and as free,

Ten thousand stars were in the sky,
Ten thousand on the sea;
For every wave, with dimpled face,
That leaped upon the air,

Had caught a star in its embrace,
And held it trembling there.

OCEAN.

AMELIA B. WELBY.

FROM "THE COURSE OF TIME," BOOK L

GREAT Ocean! strongest of creation's sons,
Unconquerable, unreposed, untired,
That rolled the wild, profound, eternal bass

The sunset hues of Time blend with the soul's In nature's anthem, and made music such

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As pleased the ear of God! original,
Unmarred, unfaded work of Deity!
And unburlesqued by mortal's puny skill;
From age to age enduring, and unchanged,
Majestical, inimitable, vast,

Loud uttering satire, day and night, on each
Succeeding race, and little pompous work
Of man; unfallen, religious, holy sea!
Thou bowedst thy glorious head to none, fearedst

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Giving a hint of that which changes not.
Rich are the sea-gods: — who gives gifts but they?
They grope the sea for pearls, but more than pearls:
They pluck Force thence, and give it to the wise.
For every wave is wealth to Dædalus,
Wealth to the cunning artist who can work
This matchless strength. Where shall he find,
O waves !

A load your Atlas shoulders cannot lift?
I with my hammer pounding evermore
The rocky coast, smite Andes into dust,
Strewing my bed, and, in another age,
Rebuild a continent of better men.

Then I unbar the doors: my paths lead out
The exodus of nations: I disperse
Men to all shores that front the hoary main.

RALPH WALDO EMERSON.

DOVER BEACH.

THE sea is calm to-night,

The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the Straits; -on the French coast, the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window; sweet is the night air!
Only, from the long line of spray

Where the ebb meets the moon-blanched sand,
Listen! you hear the grating roar

Of pebbles which the waves suck back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand.
Begin and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

THE DISAPPOINTED LOVER.

FROM "THE TRIUMPH OF TIME."

I WILL go back to the great sweet mother
Mother and lover of men, the Sea.

I will go down to her, I and none other,
Close with her, kiss her, and mix her with me;
Cling to her, strive with her, hold her fast.
O fair white mother, in days long past
Born without sister, born without brother,
Set free my soul as thy soul is free.

O fair green-girdled mother of mine,

Sea, that art clothed with the sun and the rain,
Thy sweet hard kisses are strong like wine,

Thy large embraces are keen like pain.
Save me and hide me with all thy waves,
Find me one grave of thy thousand graves,
Those pure cold populous graves of thine, -
Wrought without hand in a world without stain.

I shall sleep, and move with the moving ships,
Change as the winds change, veer in the tide;
My lips will feast on the foam of thy lips,
I shall rise with thy rising, with thee subside;
Sleep, and not know if she be, if she were,
Filled full with life to the eyes and hair,
As a rose is full filled to the rose-leaf tips
With splendid summer and perfume and pride.

This woven raiment of nights and days,

Were it once cast off and unwound from me, Naked and glad would I walk in thy ways,

Alive and aware of thy waves and thee; Clear of the whole world, hidden at home,

ADDRESS TO THE OCEAN.

O THOU vast Ocean! ever-sounding Sea!
Thou symbol of a drear immensity !
Thou thing that windest round the solid world
From the black clouds, lies weltering and alone,
Like a huge animal, which, downward hurled
Lashing and writhing till its strength be gone!
Thy voice is like the thunder, and thy sleep
Is as a giant's slumber, loud and deep.
Thou speakest in the east and in the west
At once, and on thy heavily laden breast
Or motion, yet are moved and meet in strife.
Fleets come
and go,
and shapes that have no life
The earth has naught of this: no chance or
change

Ruffles its surface, and no spirits dare
Give answer to the tempest-wakened air;
But o'er its wastes the weakly tenants range
At will, and wound its bosom as they go :
Ever the same, it hath no ebb, no flow :
But in their stated rounds the seasons come,
And pass like visions to their wonted home;
And come again, and vanish; the young Spring
Looks ever bright with leaves and blossoming;
And Winter always winds his sullen horn,
When the wild Autumn, with a look forlorn,
Dies in his stormy manhood; and the skies
Weep, and flowers sicken, when the summer flies.
O, wonderful thou art, great element,
And fearful in thy spleeny humors bent,
And lovely in repose! thy summer form
Is beautiful, and when thy silver waves
Make music in earth's dark and winding caves,

Clothed with the green, and crowned with the I love to wander on thy pebbled beach,

foam,

A pulse of the life of thy straits and bays,

A vein in the heart of the streams of the Sea.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE,

Marking the sunlight at the evening hour,
And hearken to the thoughts thy waters teach,-
Eternity Eternity and Power.

BRYAN WALLER PROCTER (Barry Cornwall).

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