BREAK, BREAK, BREAK!

BREAK, break, break,

On thy cold grey stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me.

O well for the fisherman's boy,

That he shouts with his sister at play! O well for the sailor lad,

That he sings in his boat on the bay!

And the stately ships go on

To their haven under the hill;

But, oh! for the touch of a vanished hand, And the sound of a voice that is still!

Break, break, break,

At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!

But the tender grace of a day that is dead

Will never come back to me.

ALFRED TENNYSON.

TO A WAVE.

LIST! thou child of wind and sea,
Tell me of the far-off deep,
Where the tempest's breath is free,

And the waters never sleep!

TO A WAVE.

Thou, perchance, the storm hast aided
In its work of stern despair;
Or, perchance, thy hand hath braided,
In deep caves, the mermaid's hair.

Wave! now on the golden sands,
Silent as thou art, and broken,
Bear'st thou not from distant strands
To my heart some pleasant token?
Tales of mountains of the south,
Spangles of the ore of silver;
Which, with playful singing mouth,
Thou hast leaped on high to pilfer?

Mournful wave! I deemed thy song
Was telling of a floating prison,
Which, when tempests swept along,
And the mighty winds were risen,
Foundered in the ocean's grasp.

While the brave and fair were dying,
Wave! didst mark a white hand clasp
In thy folds, as thou wert flying?

Hast thou seen the hallowed rock

Where the pride of kings reposes, Crowned with many a misty lock,

61

Wreathed with sapphire, green, and roses?

Or with joyous, playful leap,

Hast thou been a tribute flinging

Up that bold and jutty steep,

Pearls upon the south wind stringing?

Faded wave! a joy to thee,

Now thy flight and toil are over! O! may my departure be

Calm as thine, thou ocean-rover! When this soul's last pain or mirth On the shore of time is driven,

Be its lot like thine on earth,

To be lost away in heaven!

J. O. ROCKWELL.

THE VOICE OF THE SEA.

VOICE of the mighty sea!

There is glory in thy sound,
Like the rush of infinity-
Deep, terrible, profound!

Like the call of distant lands,
Or the far-off gush of songs,
Or the shout of victor bands

From an hundred thousand tongues!

Voice of the mighty sea!

Thy whisper is a storm;

THE VOICE OF THE SEA.

A hurricane thy majesty,

Arrayed in awful form.
When thy mountain-billows roar,
The thunder is unheard;
And tremblings seize the shore
At the terror of thy word.

Voice of the mighty sea!

The mariners call aloud;

Each to his God doth bow the knee,
And fears a watery shroud.
Wilt not thou hear, O sea?

Down, down in thy surgy caves

Must the hapless wanderers be
Dashed to their coral graves?

Voice of the mighty sea!

There is ONE can quell thine ire,

And bid thine agony

Of wrath in calm expire.

He hath slept in thy maddest storm,
Thy billows He hath trod,

When He bore a mortal form

Peace, babbler, 'tis thy God!

63

BENJAMIN GOUGH.

THE VOICE OF THE WAVES.

ANSWER, ye chiming waves,

That now in sunshine sweep! Speak to me from thy hidden caves, Voice of the solemn deep!

Hath man's lone spirit here

With storms and battle striven? Where all is now so calmly clear, Hath anguish cried to heaven?

Then the sea's voice arose

Like an earthquake's undertone: "Mortal! the strife of human woes Where hath not Nature known?

"Here to the quivering mast

Despair hath wildly clung;

The shriek upon the wind hath passed, The midnight sky hath rung.

"And the youthful and the brave, With their beauty and renown,

To the hollow chambers of the wave

In darkness have gone down.