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These didst thou sing of, spirit of delight! From thy own radiant sky, thou quivering spark! These thy sweet southern dreams of warmth and light, Through the grim northern winter drear and dark.
Frances Anne Kemble [1809-1893]
"O NIGHTINGALE! THOU SURELY ART"
O nightingale! thou surely art A creature of a "fiery heart":— These notes of thine—they pierce and pierce; Tumultuous harmony and fierce! Thou sing'st as if the God of wine Had helped thee to a Valentine; A song in mockery and despite Of shades, and dews, and silent night; And steady bliss, and all the loves Now sleeping in these peaceful groves.
I heard a Stock-dove sing or say His homely tale, this very day; His voice was buried among trees, Yet to be come at by the breeze: He did not cease, but cooed—and cooed; And somewhat pensively he wooed: He sang of love, with quiet blending, Slow to begin, and never ending; Of serious faith, and inward glee; That was the Song—the Song for me!
William Wordsworth [1770-1850]
PHILOMEL
As it fell upon a day In the merry month of May, Sitting in a pleasant shade Which a grove of myrtles made, Beasts did leap and birds did sing, Trees did grow and plants did spring; Everything did banish moan Save the Nightingale alone: She, poor bird, as all forlorn Leaned her breast up-till a thorn, And there sung the doleful'st ditty, That to hear it was great pity. Fie, fie, fie! now would she cry; Tereu, Tereu! by and by; That to hear her so complain Scarce I could from tears refrain; For her griefs so lively shown Made me think upon mine own. Ah! thought I, thou mourn'st in vain, None takes pity on thy pain: Senseless trees they cannot hear thee, Ruthless beasts they will not cheer thee: King Pandion he is dead, All thy friends are lapped in lead; All thy fellow birds do sing Careless of thy sorrowing: Even so, poor bird, like thee, None alive will pity me.
Richard Barnfield [1574-1627]
PHILOMELA
Hark! ah, the nightingale— The tawny-throated! Hark, from that moonlit cedar what a burst! What triumph! hark!—what pain!
O wanderer from a Grecian shore, Still, after many years, in distant lands, Still nourishing in thy bewildered brain That wild, unquenched, deep-sunken, old-world pain— Say, will it never heal? And can this fragrant lawn With its cool trees, and night, And the sweet, tranquil Thames, And moonshine, and the dew, To thy racked heart and brain Afford no balm?
Dost thou to-night behold, Here, through the moonlight on this English grass, The unfriendly palace in the Thracian wild? Dost thou again peruse With hot cheeks and seared eyes The too clear web, and thy dumb sister's shame? Dost thou once more assay Thy flight, and feel come over thee, Poor fugitive, the feathery change Once more, and once more seem to make resound With love and hate, triumph and agony, Lone Daulis, and the high Cephissian vale? Listen, Eugenia— How thick the bursts come crowding through the leaves! Again—thou hearest? Eternal passion! Eternal pain!
Matthew Arnold [1822-1888]
ON A NIGHTINGALE IN APRIL
The yellow moon is a dancing phantom Down secret ways of the flowing shade; And the waveless stream has a murmuring whisper Where the alders wave.
Not a breath, not a sigh, save the slow stream's whisper: Only the moon is a dancing blade That leads a host of the Crescent warriors To a phantom raid.
Out of the Lands of Faerie a summons, A long, strange cry that thrills through the glade:— The gray-green glooms of the elm are stirring, Newly afraid.
Last heard, white music, under the olives Where once Theocritus sang and played— Thy Thracian song is the old new wonder, O moon-white maid!
William Sharp [1855-1905]
TO THE NIGHTINGALE
Dear chorister, who from those shadows sends, Ere that the blushing morn dare show her light, Such sad lamenting strains, that night attends, Become all ear, stars stay to hear thy plight: If one whose grief even reach of thought transcends, Who ne'er, not in a dream, did taste delight, May thee importune who like care pretends, And seems to joy in woe, in woe's despite; Tell me (so may thou fortune milder try, And long, long sing) for what thou thus complains, Since, winter gone, the sun in dappled sky Now smiles on meadows, mountains, woods, and plains? The bird, as if my questions did her move, With trembling wings sobbed forth, I love! I love!"
William Drummond [1585-1649]
THE NIGHTINGALE
To-night retired, the queen of heaven With young Endymion stays; And now to Hesper it is given Awhile to rule the vacant sky, Till she shall to her lamp supply A stream of brighter rays....
Propitious send thy golden ray, Thou purest light above: Let no false flame seduce to stray Where gulf or steep lie hid for harm; But lead where music's healing charm May soothe afflicted love.
To them, by many a grateful song In happier seasons vowed, These lawns, Olympia's haunt, belong: Oft by yon silver stream we walked, Or fixed, while Philomela talked, Beneath yon copses stood.
Nor seldom, where the beechen boughs That roofless tower invade, We came, while her enchanting Muse The radiant moon above us held: Till, by a clamorous owl compelled, She fled the solemn shade.
But hark! I hear her liquid tone! Now, Hesper, guide my feet Down the red marl with moss o'ergrown, Through yon wild thicket next the plain, Whose hawthorns choke the winding lane Which leads to her retreat.
See the green space: on either hand Enlarged it spreads around: See, in the midst she takes her stand, Where one old oak his awful shade Extends o'er half the level mead, Enclosed in woods profound.
Hark! how through many a melting note She now prolongs her lays: How sweetly down the void they float! The breeze their magic path attends; The stars shine out; the forest bends; The wakeful heifers gaze.
Whoe'er thou art whom chance may bring To this sequestered spot, If then the plaintive Siren sing, O softly tread beneath her bower And think of Heaven's disposing power, Of man's uncertain lot.
O think, o'er all this mortal stage What mournful scenes arise: What ruin waits on kingly rage; How often virtue dwells with woe; How many griefs from knowledge flow; How swiftly pleasure flies!
O sacred bird! let me at eve, Thus wandering all alone, Thy tender counsel oft receive, Bear witness to thy pensive airs, And pity Nature's common cares, Till I forget my own.
Mark Akenside [1721-1770]
TO THE NIGHTINGALE
O nightingale that on yon bloomy spray Warblest at eve, when all the woods are still, Thou with fresh hope the lover's heart dost fill, While the jolly hours lead on propitious May. Thy liquid notes that close the eye of day, First heard before the shallow cuckoo's bill, Portend success in love. O, if Jove's will Have linked that amorous power to thy soft lay, Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate Foretell my hopeless doom, in some grove nigh; As thou from year to year hast sung too late For my relief, yet hadst no reason why. Whether the Muse or Love call thee his mate, Both them I serve, and of their train am I.
John Milton [1608-1674]
PHILOMELA
The Nightingale, as soon as April bringeth Unto her rested sense a perfect waking, While late-bare Earth, proud of new clothing, springeth, Sings out her woes, a thorn her song-book making; And mournfully bewailing, Her throat in tunes expresseth What grief her breast oppresseth, For Tereus' force on her chaste will prevailing.
O Philomela fair, O take some gladness That here is juster cause of plaintful sadness! Thine earth now springs, mine fadeth; Thy thorn without, my thorn my heart invadeth.
Alas! she hath no other cause of anguish But Tereus' love, on her by strong hand wroken; Wherein she suffering, all her spirits languish, Full womanlike, complains her will was broken, But I, who, daily craving, Cannot have to content me, Have more cause to lament me, Since wanting is more woe than too much having.
O Philomela fair, O take some gladness That here is juster cause of plaintful sadness! Thine earth now springs, mine fadeth; Thy thorn without, my thorn my heart invadeth.
Philip Sidney [1554-1586]
ODE TO A NIGHTINGALE
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: 'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thy happiness,— That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
O for a draught of vintage, that hath been Cooled a long age in the deep-delved earth, Tasting of Flora and the country green, Dance, and Provencal song, and sunburnt mirth! O for a beaker full of the warm South, Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene, With beaded bubbles winking at the brim, And purple-stained mouth; That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim:
Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret, Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and specter-thin, and dies; Where but to think is to be full of sorrow And leaden-eyed despairs; Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes, Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
Away! away! for I will fly to thee, Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy, Though the dull brain perplexes and retards: Already with thee! tender is the night, And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne, Clustered around by all her starry Fays; But here there is no light, Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet, Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs, But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet Wherewith the seasonable month endows The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild; White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine; Fast-fading violets covered up in leaves; And mid-May's eldest child, The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine, The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme, To take into the air my quiet breath; Now more than ever seems it rich to die, To cease upon the midnight with no pain, While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad In such an ecstasy! Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain— To thy high requiem become a sod.
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charmed magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell To toll me back from thee to my sole self! Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well As she is famed to do, deceiving elf. Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades Past the near meadows, over the still stream, Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep In the next valley-glades: Was it a vision, or a waking dream? Fled is that music:—Do I wake or sleep?
John Keats [1795-1821]
SONG
'Tis sweet to hear the merry lark, That bids a blithe good-morrow; But sweeter to hark, in the twinkling dark, To the soothing song of sorrow. Oh nightingale! What doth she ail? And is she sad or jolly? For ne'er on earth was sound of mirth So like to melancholy.
The merry lark, he soars on high, No worldly thought o'ertakes him; He sings aloud to the clear blue sky, And the daylight that awakes him. As sweet a lay, as loud, as gay, The nightingale is trilling; With feeling bliss, no less than his, Her little heart is thrilling.
Yet ever and anon, a sigh Peers through her lavish mirth; For the lark's bold song is of the sky, And hers is of the earth. By night and day, she tunes her lay, To drive away all sorrow; For bliss, alas! to-night must pass, And woe may come to-morrow.
Hartley Coleridge [1796-1840]
BIRD SONG
The robin sings of willow-buds, Of snowflakes on the green; The bluebird sings of Mayflowers, The crackling leaves between; The veery has a thousand tales To tell to girl and boy; But the oriole, the oriole, Sings, "Joy! joy! joy!"
The pewee calls his little mate, Sweet Phoebe, gone astray, The warbler sings, "What fun, what fun, To tilt upon the spray!" The cuckoo has no song, but clucks, Like any wooden toy; But the oriole, the oriole, Sings, "Joy! joy! joy!"
The grosbeak sings the rose's birth, And paints her on his breast; The sparrow sings of speckled eggs, Soft brooded in the nest. The wood-thrush sings of peace, "Sweet peace, Sweet peace," without alloy; But the oriole, the oriole, Sings "Joy! joy! joy!"
Laura E. Richards [1850-
THE SONG THE ORIOLE SINGS
There is a bird that comes and sings In a professor's garden-trees; Upon the English oak he swings, And tilts and tosses in the breeze.
I know his name, I know his note, That so with rapture takes my soul; Like flame the gold beneath his throat, His glossy cope is black as coal.
O oriole, it is the song You sang me from the cottonwood, Too young to feel that I was young, Too glad to guess if life were good.
And while I hark, before my door, Adown the dusty Concord Road, The blue Miami flows once more As by the cottonwood it flowed.
And on the bank that rises steep, And pours a thousand tiny rills, From death and absence laugh and leap My school-mates to their flutter-mills.
The blackbirds jangle in the tops Of hoary-antlered sycamores; The timorous killdee starts and stops Among the drift-wood on the shores.
Below, the bridge—a noonday fear Of dust and shadow shot with sun— Stretches its gloom from pier to pier, Far unto alien coasts unknown.
And on these alien coasts, above, Where silver ripples break the stream's Long blue, from some roof-sheltering grove A hidden parrot scolds and screams.
Ah, nothing, nothing! Commonest things: A touch, a glimpse, a sound, a breath— It is a song the oriole sings— And all the rest belongs to death.
But oriole, my oriole, Were some bright seraph sent from bliss With songs of heaven to win my soul From simple memories such as this,
What could he tell to tempt my ear From you? What high thing could there be, So tenderly and sweetly dear As my lost boyhood is to me?
William Dean Howells [1837-1920]
TO AN ORIOLE
How falls it, oriole, thou hast come to fly In tropic splendor through our Northern sky?
At some glad moment was it nature's choice To dower a scrap of sunset with a voice?
Or did some orange tulip, flaked with black, In some forgotten garden, ages back,
Yearning toward Heaven until its wish was heard, Desire unspeakably to be a bird?
Edgar Fawcett [1847-1904]
SONG: THE OWL
When cats run home and light is come, And dew is cold upon the ground, And the far-off stream is dumb, And the whirring sail goes round, And the whirring sail goes round; Alone and warming his five wits, The white owl in the belfry sits.
When merry milkmaids click the latch, And rarely smells the new-mown hay, And the cock hath sung beneath the thatch Twice or thrice his roundelay, Twice or thrice his roundelay; Alone and warming his five wits, The white owl in the belfry sits.
Alfred Tennyson [1809-1892]
SWEET SUFFOLK OWL
Sweet Suffolk owl, so trimly dight With feathers, like a lady bright; Thou sing'st alone, sitting by night, "Te whit! Te whoo!"
Thy note that forth so freely rolls With shrill command the mouse controls; And sings a dirge for dying souls. "Te whit! Te whoo!"
Thomas Vautor [fl. 1616]
THE PEWEE
The listening Dryads hushed the woods; The boughs were thick, and thin and few The golden ribbons fluttering through; Their sun-embroidered, leafy hoods The lindens lifted to the blue: Only a little forest-brook The farthest hem of silence shook: When in the hollow shades I heard,— Was it a spirit, or a bird? Or, strayed from Eden, desolate, Some Peri calling to her mate, Whom nevermore her mate would cheer? Pe-ri! pe-ri! peer!"
Through rocky clefts the brooklet fell With plashy pour, that scarce was sound, But only quiet less profound, A stillness fresh and audible: A yellow leaflet to the ground Whirled noiselessly: with wing of gloss A hovering sunbeam brushed the moss, And, wavering brightly over it, Sat like a butterfly alit: The owlet in his open door Stared roundly: while the breezes bore The plaint to far-off places drear,— "Pe-ree! pe-ree! peer!"
To trace it in its green retreat I sought among the boughs in vain; And followed still the wandering strain, So melancholy and so sweet The dim-eyed violets yearned with pain. 'Twas now a sorrow in the air, Some nymph's immortalized despair Haunting the woods and waterfalls; And now, at long, sad intervals, Sitting unseen in dusky shade, His plaintive pipe some fairy played, With long-drawn cadence thin and clear,— "Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!"
Long-drawn and clear its closes were,— As if the hand of Music through The somber robe of Silence drew A thread of golden gossamer: So pure a flute the fairy blew. Like beggared princes of the wood, In silver rags the birches stood; The hemlocks, lordly counselors, Were dumb; the sturdy servitors, In beechen jackets patched and gray, Seemed waiting spellbound all the day That low, entrancing note to hear,— "Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!"
I quit the search, and sat me down Beside the brook, irresolute, And watched a little bird in suit Of sober olive, soft and brown, Perched in the maple-branches, mute: With greenish gold its vest was fringed, Its tiny cap was ebon-tinged, With ivory pale its wings were barred, And its dark eyes were tender-starred. "Dear bird," I said, "what is thy name?" And thrice the mournful answer came, So faint and far, and yet so near,— "Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!"
For so I found my forest bird,— The pewee of the loneliest woods, Sole singer in these solitudes, Which never robin's whistle stirred, Where never bluebird's plume intrudes. Quick darting through the dewy morn, The redstart trilled his twittering horn, And vanished in thick boughs: at even, Like liquid pearls fresh showered from heaven, The high notes of the lone wood-thrush Fall on the forest's holy hush: But thou all day complainest here,— "Pe-wee! pe-wee! peer!"
Hast thou, too, in thy little breast, Strange longings for a happier lot,— For love, for life, thou know'st not what,— A yearning, and a vague unrest, For something still which thou hast not?— Thou soul of some benighted child That perished, crying in the wild! Or lost, forlorn, and wandering maid, By love allured, by love betrayed, Whose spirit with her latest sigh Arose, a little winged cry, Above her chill and mossy bier! "Dear me! dear me! dear!"
Ah, no such piercing sorrow mars The pewee's life of cheerful ease! He sings, or leaves his song to seize An insect sporting in the bars Of mild bright light that gild the trees. A very poet he! For him All pleasant places still and dim: His heart, a spark of heavenly fire, Burns with undying, sweet desire: And so he sings; and so his song, Though heard not by the hurrying throng, Is solace to the pensive ear: Pewee! pewee! peer!
John Townsend Trowbridge [1827-1916]
ROBIN REDBREAST
Sweet Robin, I have heard them say That thou wert there upon the day The Christ was crowned in cruel scorn And bore away one bleeding thorn,— That so the blush upon thy breast, In shameful sorrow, was impressed; And thence thy genial sympathy With our redeemed humanity.
Sweet Robin, would that I might be Bathed in my Saviour's blood, like thee; Bear in my breast, whate'er the loss, The bleeding blazon of the cross; Live ever, with thy loving mind, In fellowship with human-kind; And take my pattern still from thee, In gentleness and constancy.
George Washington Doane [1799-1859]
ROBIN REDBREAST
Good-by, good-by to Summer! For Summer's nearly done;— The garden smiling faintly, Cool breezes in the sun; Our thrushes now are silent, Our swallows flown away,— But Robin's here in coat of brown, And scarlet breast-knot gay. Robin, Robin Redbreast, O Robin dear! Robin sings so sweetly In the falling of the year.
Bright yellow, red, and orange, The leaves come down in hosts; The trees are Indian princes, But soon they'll turn to ghosts; The scanty pears and apples Hang russet on the bough; It's Autumn, Autumn, Autumn late, 'Twill soon be Winter now. Robin, Robin Redbreast, O Robin dear! And what will this poor Robin do? For pinching days are near.
The fireside for the cricket, The wheat-stack for the mouse, When trembling night-winds whistle And moan all round the house. The frosty ways like iron, The branches plumed with snow,— Alas! in Winter dead and dark, Where can poor Robin go? Robin, Robin Redbreast, O Robin dear! And a crumb of bread for Robin, His little heart to cheer!
William Allingham [1824-1889]
THE SANDPIPER
Across the narrow beach we flit, One little sandpiper and I, And fast I gather, bit by bit, The scattered driftwood bleached and dry. The wild waves reach their hands for it, The wild wind raves, the tide runs high, As up and down the beach we flit,— One little sandpiper and I.
Above our heads the sullen clouds Scud black and swift across the sky; Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds Stand out the white lighthouses high. Almost as far as eye can reach I see the close-reefed vessels fly, As fast we flit along the beach,— One little sandpiper and I.
I watch him as he skims along, Uttering his sweet and mournful cry. He starts not at my fitful song, Or flash of fluttering drapery. He has no thought of any wrong; He scans me with a fearless eye: Staunch friends are we, well tried and strong, The little sandpiper and I.
Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night When the loosed storm breaks furiously? My driftwood fire will burn so bright! To what warm shelter canst thou fly? I do not fear for thee, though wroth The tempest rushes through the sky: For are we not God's children both, Thou, little sandpiper, and I?
Celia Thaxter [1835-1894]
THE SEA-MEW
How joyously the young sea-mew Lay dreaming on the waters blue, Whereon our little bark had thrown A little shade, the only one,— But shadows ever man pursue.
Familiar with the waves and free As if their own white foam were he, His heart upon the heart of ocean Lay learning all its mystic motion, And throbbing to the throbbing sea.
And such a brightness in his eye, As if the ocean and the sky Within him had lit up and nursed A soul God gave him not at first To comprehend their majesty.
We were not cruel, yet did sunder His white wing from the blue waves under, And bound it, while his fearless eyes Shone up to ours in calm surprise, As deeming us some ocean wonder!
We bore our ocean bird unto A grassy place, where he might view The flowers that curtsey to the bees, The waving of the tall green trees, The falling of the silver dew.
But flowers of earth were pale to him Who had seen the rainbow fishes swim; And when earth's dew around him lay He thought of ocean's winged spray, And his eye waxed sad and dim.
The green trees round him only made A prison with their darksome shade; And dropped his wing, and mourned he For his own boundless glittering sea— Albeit he knew not they could fade.
Then One her gladsome face did bring, Her gentle voice's murmuring, In ocean's stead his heart to move And teach him what was human love: He thought it a strange, mournful thing.
He lay down in his grief to die (First looking to the sea-like sky That hath no waves!), because, alas! Our human touch did on him pass, And, with our touch, our agony.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning [1806-1861]
TO A SKYLARK
Up with me! up with me into the clouds! For thy song, Lark, is strong; Up with me, up with me into the clouds! Singing, singing, With clouds and sky about thee ringing, Lift me, guide me till I find That spot which seems so to thy mind!
I have walked through wildernesses dreary And to-day my heart is weary; Had I now the wings of a Fairy, Up to thee would I fly. There is madness about thee, and joy divine In that song of thine; Lift me, guide me high and high To thy banqueting-Place in the sky.
Joyous as morning Thou art laughing and scorning; Thou hast a nest for thy love and thy rest. And, though little troubled with sloth, Drunken Lark! thou would'st be loth To be such a traveler as I. Happy, happy Liver, With a soul as strong as a mountain river Pouring out praise to the Almighty Giver, Joy and jollity be with us both!
Alas! my journey, rugged and uneven, Through prickly moors or dusty ways must wind; But hearing thee, or others of thy kind, As full of gladness and as free of heaven, I, with my fate contented, will plod on, And hope for higher raptures, when life's day is done.
William Wordsworth [1770-1850]
TO A SKYLARK
Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky! Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound? Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground? Thy nest which thou canst drop into at will, Those quivering wings composed, that music still!
To the last point of vision, and beyond, Mount, daring warbler!—that love-prompted strain —'Twixt thee and thine a never-failing bond— Thrills not the less the bosom of the plain: Yet might'st thou seem, proud privilege! to sing All independent of the leafy spring.
Leave to the nightingale her shady wood; A privacy of glorious light is thine, Whence thou dost pour upon the world a flood Of harmony, with instinct more divine: Type of the wise, who soar, but never roam— True to the kindred points of Heaven and Home!
William Wordsworth [1770-1850]
THE SKYLARK
Bird of the wilderness, Blithesome and cumberless, Sweet be thy matin o'er moorland and lea! Emblem of happiness, Blest is thy dwelling-place— O to abide in the desert with thee!
Wild is thy lay and loud, Far in the downy cloud, Love gives it energy, love gave it birth. Where, on thy dewy wing, Where art thou journeying? Thy lay is in heaven, thy love is on earth.
O'er fell and fountain sheen, O'er moor and mountain green, O'er the red streamer that heralds the day, Over the cloudlet dim, Over the rainbow's rim, Musical cherub, soar, singing, away!
Then, when the gloaming comes, Low in the heather blooms Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be! Emblem of happiness, Blest is thy dwelling-place— O to abide in the desert with thee!
James Hogg [1770-1835]
THE SKYLARK
How the blithe Lark runs up the golden stair That leans through cloudy gates from Heaven to Earth, And all alone in the empyreal air Fills it with jubilant sweet songs of mirth; How far he seems, how far With the light upon his wings, Is it a bird, or star That shines, and sings?
What matter if the days be dark and frore, That sunbeam tells of other days to be, And singing in the light that floods him o'er In joy he overtakes Futurity; Under cloud-arches vast He peeps, and sees behind Great Summer coming fast Adown the wind!
And now he dives into a rainbow's rivers, In streams of gold and purple he is drowned, Shrilly the arrows of his song he shivers, As though the stormy drops were turned to sound; And now he issues through, He scales a cloudy tower, Faintly, like falling dew, His fast notes shower.
Let every wind be hushed, that I may hear The wondrous things he tells the World below, Things that we dream of he is watching near, Hopes that we never dreamed he would bestow; Alas! the storm hath rolled Back the gold gates again, Or surely he had told All Heaven to men!
So the victorious Poet sings alone, And fills with light his solitary home, And through that glory sees new worlds foreshown, And hears high songs, and triumphs yet to come; He waves the air of Time With thrills of golden chords, And makes the world to climb On linked words.
What if his hair be gray, his eyes be dim, If wealth forsake him, and if friends be cold, Wonder unbars her thousand gates to him, Truth never fails, nor Beauty waxes old; More than he tells his eyes Behold, his spirit hears, Of grief, and joy, and sighs 'Twixt joy and tears.
Blest is the man who with the sound of song Can charm away the heartache, and forget The frost of Penury, and the stings of Wrong, And drown the fatal whisper of Regret! Darker are the abodes Of Kings, though his be poor, While Fancies, like the Gods, Pass through his door.
Singing thou scalest Heaven upon thy wings, Thou liftest a glad heart into the skies; He maketh his own sunrise, while he sings, And turns the dusty Earth to Paradise; I see thee sail along Far up the sunny streams, Unseen, I hear his song, I see his dreams.
Frederick Tennyson [1807-1898]
TO A SKYLARK
Hail to thee, blithe spirit! Bird thou never wert, That from heaven, or near it, Pourest thy full heart In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.
Higher still and higher, From the earth thou springest Like a cloud of fire; The blue deep thou wingest, And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.
In the golden lightning Of the sunken sun, O'er which clouds are bright'ning, Thou dost float and run; Like an unbodied joy whose race is just begun.
The pale purple even Melts around thy flight; Like a star of heaven In the broad daylight Thou art unseen, but yet I hear thy shrill delight.
Keen as are the arrows Of that silver sphere, Whose intense lamp narrows In the white dawn clear, Until we hardly see, we feel that it is there.
All the earth and air With thy voice is loud, As, when night is bare, From one lonely cloud The moon rains out her beams, and heaven is overflowed.
What thou art we know not; What is most like thee? From rainbow clouds there flow not Drops so bright to see As from thy presence showers a rain of melody.
Like a poet hidden In the light of thought, Singing hymns unbidden Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears it heeded not:
Like a high-born maiden In a palace tower, Soothing her love-laden Soul in secret hour With music sweet as love, which overflows her bower:
Like a glow-worm golden In a dell of dew, Scattering unbeholden Its aerial hue Among the flowers and grass, which screen it from the view:
Like a rose embowered In its own green leaves, By warm winds deflowered, Till the scent it gives Makes faint with too much sweet these heavy-winged thieves:
Sound of vernal showers On the twinkling grass, Rain-awakened flowers, All that ever was Joyous, and clear, and fresh, thy music doth surpass.
Teach us, sprite or bird, What sweet thoughts are thine: I have never heard Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of rapture so divine.
Chorus hymeneal, Or triumphal chaunt, Matched with thine would be all But an empty vaunt— A thing wherein we feel there is some hidden want.
What objects are the fountains Of thy happy strain? What fields, or waves, or mountains? What shapes of sky or plain? What love of thine own kind? what ignorance of pain?
With thy clear keen joyance Languor cannot be: Shadow of annoyance Never came near thee: Thou lovest; but ne'er knew love's sad satiety.
Waking or asleep, Thou of death must deem Things more true and deep Than we mortals dream, Or how could thy notes flow in such a crystal stream?
We look before and after, And pine for what is not: Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
Yet if we could scorn Hate, and pride, and fear; If we were things born Not to shed a tear, I know not how thy joy we ever should come near.
Better than all measures Of delightful sound, Better than all treasures That in books are found, Thy skill to poet were, thou scorner of the ground!
Teach me half the gladness That thy brain must know, Such harmonious madness From my lips would flow, The world should listen then, as I am listening now.
Percy Bysshe Shelley [1792-1822]
THE STORMY PETREL
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 scattered 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! Where the whale and the shark and the swordfish sleep,— Outflying the blast and the driving rain, The petrel telleth her tale—in vain; For the mariner curseth the warning bird Which bringeth him news of the storm unheard! Ah! thus does the prophet, of good or ill, Meet hate from the creatures he serveth still; Yet he ne'er falter,—so, petrel, spring Once more o'er the waves on thy stormy wing!
Bryan Waller Procter [1787-1874]
THE FIRST SWALLOW
The gorse is yellow on the heath, The banks with speedwell flowers are gay, The oaks are budding, and, beneath, The hawthorn soon will bear the wreath, The silver wreath, of May.
The welcome guest of settled Spring, The swallow, too, has come at last; Just at sunset, when thrushes sing, I saw her dash with rapid wing, And hailed her as she passed.
Come, summer visitant, attach To my reed roof your nest of clay, And let my ear your music catch, Low twittering underneath the thatch At the gray dawn of day.
Charlotte Smith [1749-1806]
TO A SWALLOW BUILDING UNDER OUR EAVES
Thou too hast traveled, little fluttering thing,— Hast seen the world, and now thy weary wing Thou too must rest. But much, my little bird, could'st thou but tell, I'd give to know why here thou lik'st so well To build thy nest.
For thou hast passed fair places in thy flight; A world lay all beneath thee where to light; And, strange thy taste, Of all the varied scenes that met thine eye, Of all the spots for building 'neath the sky, To choose this waste!
Did fortune try thee?—was thy little purse Perchance run low, and thou, afraid of worse, Felt here secure? Ah, no! thou need'st not gold, thou happy one! Thou know'st it not. Of all God's creatures, man Alone is poor.
What was it, then?—some mystic turn of thought, Caught under German eaves, and hither brought, Marring thine eye For the world's loveliness, till thou art grown A sober thing that dost but mope and moan, Not knowing why?
Nay, if thy mind be sound, I need not ask, Since here I see thee working at thy task With wing and beak. A well-laid scheme doth that small head contain, At which thou work'st, brave bird, with might and main, Nor more need'st seek.
In truth, I rather take it thou hast got By instinct wise much sense about thy lot, And hast small care Whether an Eden or a desert be Thy home, so thou remain'st alive, and free To skim the air.
God speed thee, pretty bird! May thy small nest With little ones all in good time be blest. I love thee much; For well thou managest that life of thine, While I—oh, ask not what I do with mine! Would I were such!
Jane Welsh Carlyle [1801-1866]
CHIMNEY SWALLOWS
I slept in an old homestead by the sea: And in their chimney nest, At night the swallows told home-lore to me, As to a friendly guest.
A liquid twitter, low, confiding, glad, From many glossy throats, Was all the voice; and yet its accents had A poem's golden notes.
Quaint legends of the fireside and the shore, And sounds of festal cheer, And tones of those whose tasks of love are o'er, Were breathed into mine ear;
And wondrous lyrics, felt but never sung, The heart's melodious bloom; And histories, whose perfumes long have clung About each hallowed room.
I heard the dream of lovers, as they found At last their hour of bliss, And fear and pain and long suspense were drowned In one heart-healing kiss.
I heard the lullaby of babes, that grew To sons and daughters fair; And childhood's angels, singing as they flew, And sobs of secret prayer.
I heard the voyagers who seemed to sail Into the sapphire sky, And sad, weird voices in the autumn gale, As the swift ships went by;
And sighs suppressed and converse soft and low About the sufferer's bed, And what is uttered when the stricken know That the dear one is dead;
And steps of those who, in the Sabbath light, Muse with transfigured face; And hot lips pressing, through the long, dark night, The pillow's empty place;
And fervent greetings of old friends, whose path In youth had gone apart, But to each other brought life's aftermath, With uncorroded heart.
The music of the seasons touched the strain, Bird-joy and laugh of flowers, The orchard's bounty and the yellow grain, Snow storm and sunny showers;
And secrets of the soul that doubts and yearns And gropes in regions dim, Till, meeting Christ with raptured eye, discerns Its perfect life in Him.
So, thinking of the Master and his tears, And how the birds are kept, I sank in arms that folded me from fears, And like an infant, slept.
Horatio Nelson Powers [1826-1890]
ITYLUS
Swallow, my sister, O sister swallow, How can thine heart be full of the spring? A thousand summers are over and dead. What hast thou found in the spring to follow? What hast thou found in thine heart to sing? What wilt thou do when the summer is shed?
O swallow, sister, O fair swift swallow, Why wilt thou fly after spring to the south, The soft south whither thine heart is set? Shall not the grief of the old time follow? Shall not the song thereof cleave to thy mouth? Hast thou forgotten ere I forget?
Sister, my sister, O fleet sweet swallow, Thy way is long to the sun and the south; But I, fulfilled of my heart's desire, Shedding my song upon height, upon hollow, From tawny body and sweet small mouth Feed the heart of the night with fire.
I the nightingale all spring through, O swallow, sister, O changing swallow, All spring through till the spring be done, Clothed with the light of the night on the dew, Sing, while the hours and the wild birds follow, Take flight and follow and find the sun.
Sister, my sister, O soft light swallow, Though all things feast in the spring's guest-chamber, How hast thou heart to be glad thereof yet? For where thou fliest I shall not follow, Till life forget and death remember, Till thou remember and I forget.
Swallow, my sister, O singing swallow, I know not how thou hast heart to sing. Hast thou the heart? is it all passed over? Thy lord the summer is good to follow, And fair the feet of thy lover the spring: But what wilt thou say to the spring thy lover?
O swallow, sister, O fleeting swallow, My heart in me is a molten ember And over my head the waves have met. But thou wouldst tarry or I would follow Could I forget or thou remember, Couldst thou remember and I forget.
O sweet stray sister, O shifting swallow, The heart's division divideth us. Thy heart is light as a leaf of a tree; But mine goes forth among sea-gulfs hollow To the place of the slaying of Itylus, The feast of Daulis, the Thracian sea.
O swallow, sister, O rapid swallow, I pray thee sing not a little space. Are not the roofs and the lintels wet? The woven web that was plain to follow, The small slain body, the flower-like face, Can I remember if thou forget?
O sister, sister, thy first-begotten! The hands that cling and the feet that follow, The voice of the child's blood crying yet, Who hath remembered me? who hath forgotten? Thou hast forgotten, O summer swallow, But the world shall end when I forget.
Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909]
THE THROSTLE
"Summer is coming, summer is coming, I know it, I know it, I know it. Light again, leaf again, life again, love again," Yes, my wild little Poet.
Sing the new year in under the blue. Last year you sang it as gladly. "New, new, new, new!" Is it then so new That you should carol so madly?
"Love again, song again, nest again, young again," Never a prophet so crazy! And hardly a daisy as yet, little friend, See, there is hardly a daisy.
"Here again, here, here, here, happy year!" O warble unchidden, unbidden! Summer is coming, is coming, my dear, And all the winters are hidden.
Alfred Tennyson [1809-1892]
OVERFLOW
Hush! With sudden gush As from a fountain, sings in yonder bush The Hermit Thrush.
Hark! Did ever Lark With swifter scintillations fling the spark That fires the dark?
Again, Like April rain Of mist and sunshine mingled, moves the strain O'er hill and plain.
Strong As love, O Song, In flame or torrent sweep through Life along, O'er grief and wrong.
John Banister Tabb [1845-1909]
JOY-MONTH
Oh, hark to the brown thrush! hear how he sings! How he pours the dear pain of his gladness! What a gush! and from out what golden springs! What a rage of how sweet madness!
And golden the buttercup blooms by the way, A song of the joyous ground; While the melody rained from yonder spray Is a blossom in fields of sound.
How glisten the eyes of the happy leaves! How whispers each blade, "I am blest!" Rosy Heaven his lips to flowered earth gives, With the costliest bliss of his breast.
Pour, pour of the wine of thy heart, O Nature! By cups of field and of sky, By the brimming soul of every creature!— Joy-mad, dear Mother, am I.
Tongues, tongues for my joy, for my joy! more tongues!— Oh, thanks to the thrush on the tree, To the sky, and to all earth's blooms and songs! They utter the heart in me.
David Atwood Wasson [1823-1887]
MY THRUSH
All through the sultry hours of June, From morning blithe to golden noon, And till the star of evening climbs The gray-blue East, a world too soon, There sings a Thrush amid the limes.
God's poet, hid in foliage green, Sings endless songs, himself unseen; Right seldom come his silent times. Linger, ye summer hours serene! Sing on, dear Thrush, amid the limes!
Nor from these confines wander out, Where the old gun, bucolic lout, Commits all day his murderous crimes: Though cherries ripe are sweet, no doubt, Sweeter thy song amid the limes.
May I not dream God sends thee there, Thou mellow angel of the air, Even to rebuke my earthlier rhymes With music's soul, all praise and prayer? Is that thy lesson in the limes?
Closer to God art thou than I: His minstrel thou, whose brown wings fly Through silent ether's summer climes. Ah, never may thy music die! Sing on, dear Thrush, amid the limes!
Mortimer Collins [1827-1876]
"BLOW SOFTLY, THRUSH"
Blow softly, thrush, upon the hush That makes the least leaf loud, Blow, wild of heart, remote, apart From all the vocal crowd, Apart, remote, a spirit note That dances meltingly afloat, Blow faintly, thrush! And build the green-hid waterfall I hated for its beauty, and all The unloved vernal rapture and flush, The old forgotten lonely time, Delicate thrush! Spring's at the prime, the world's in chime, And my love is listening nearly; O lightly blow the ancient woe, Flute of the wood, blow clearly! Blow, she is here, and the world all dear, Melting flute of the hush, Old sorrow estranged, enriched, sea-changed, Breathe it, veery thrush!
Joseph Russell Taylor [1868-1933]
THE BLACK VULTURE
Aloof within the day's enormous dome, He holds unshared the silence of the sky. Far down his bleak, relentless eyes descry The eagle's empire and the falcon's home— Far down, the galleons of sunset roam; His hazards on the sea of morning lie; Serene, he hears the broken tempest sigh Where cold sierras gleam like scattered foam. And least of all he holds the human swarm— Unwitting now that envious men prepare To make their dream and its fulfillment one When, poised above the caldrons of the storm, Their hearts, contemptuous of death, shall dare His roads between the thunder and the sun.
George Sterling [1869-1926]
WILD GEESE
How oft against the sunset sky or moon I watched that moving zigzag of spread wings In unforgotten Autumns gone too soon, In unforgotten Springs! Creatures of desolation, far they fly Above all lands bound by the curling foam; In misty lens, wild moors and trackless sky These wild things have their home. They know the tundra of Siberian coasts. And tropic marshes by the Indian seas; They know the clouds and night and starry hosts From Crux to Pleiades. Dark flying rune against the western glow— It tells the sweep and loneliness of things, Symbol of Autumns vanished long ago. Symbol of coming Springs!
Frederick Peterson [1859-
TO A WATERFOWL
Whither, midst falling dew, While glow the heavens with the last steps of day, Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue Thy solitary way?
Vainly the fowler's eye Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong, As, darkly painted on the crimson sky, Thy figure floats along.
Seek'st thou the plashy brink Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide, Or where the rocking billows rise and sink On the chafed ocean-side?
There is a Power whose care Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,— The desert and illimitable air,— Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fanned At that far height, the cold, thin atmosphere, Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land, Though the dark night is near.
And soon that toil shall end; Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows; reeds shall bend, Soon, o'er thy sheltered nest.
Thou'rt gone, the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart.
He who, from zone to zone, Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight, In the long way that I must tread alone, Will lead my steps aright.
William Cullen Bryant [1794-1878]
THE WOOD-DOVE'S NOTE
Meadows with yellow cowslips all aglow, Glory of sunshine on the uplands bare, And faint and far, with sweet elusive flow, The Wood-dove's plaintive call, "O where! where! where!"
Straight with old Omar in the almond grove From whitening boughs I breathe the odors rare And hear the princess mourning for her love With sad unwearied plaint, "O where! where! where!"
New madrigals in each soft pulsing throat— New life upleaping to the brooding air— Still the heart answers to that questing note, "Soul of the vanished years, O where! where! where!"
Emily Huntington Miller [1833-1913]
THE SEA
SONG FOR ALL SEAS, ALL SHIPS
I To-day a rude brief recitative, Of ships sailing the seas, each with its special flag or ship-signal, Of unnamed heroes in the ships—of waves spreading and spreading far as the eye can reach, Of dashing spray, and the winds piping and blowing, And out of these a chant for the sailors of all nations, Fitful, like a surge.
Of sea-captains young or old, and the mates, and of all intrepid sailors, Of the few, very choice, taciturn, whom fate can never surprise nor death dismay, Picked sparingly without noise by thee, old ocean, chosen by thee, Thou sea that pickest and cullest the race in time, and unitest nations, Suckled by thee, old husky nurse, embodying thee, Indomitable, untamed as thee.
(Ever the heroes on water or on land, by ones or twos appearing, Ever the stock preserved and never lost, though rare, enough for seed preserved.)
II Flaunt out, O sea, your separate flags of nations! Flaunt out visible as ever the various ship-signals! But do you reserve especially for yourself and for the soul of man one flag above all the rest, A spiritual woven signal for all nations, emblem of man elate above death, Token of all brave captains and all intrepid sailors and mates, And all that went down doing their duty, Reminiscent of them, twined from all intrepid captains young or old, A pennant universal, subtly waving all time, o'er all brave sailors, All seas, all ships.
Walt Whitman [1819-1892]
STANZAS 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 fulfilled 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, Clothed with the green, and crowned with the foam, A pulse of the life of thy straits and bays, A vein in the heart of the streams of the Sea.
Fair mother, fed with the lives of men, Thou art subtle and cruel of heart, men say; Thou hast taken, and shalt not render again; Thou art full of thy dead, and cold as they. But death is the worst that comes of thee; Thou art fed with our dead, O Mother, O Sea, But when hast thou fed on our hearts? or when Having given us love, hast thou taken away?
O tender-hearted, O perfect lover, Thy lips are bitter, and sweet thine heart. The hopes that hurt and the dreams that hover, Shall they not vanish away and apart? But thou, thou art sure, thou art older than earth; Thou art strong for death and fruitful of birth; Thy depths conceal and thy gulfs discover; From the first thou wert; in the end thou art.
Algernon Charles Swinburne [1837-1909]
THE SEA From "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society where none intrudes By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet can not all conceal.
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, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.
His steps are not upon thy paths, thy fields Are not a spoil for him,—thou dost arise And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies 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 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 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 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.
And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward. From a boy I wantoned with thy breakers,—they to me Were a delight; and if the freshening sea Made them a terror, 'twas a pleasing fear; For I was as it were a child of thee, And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane,—as I do here.
George Gordon Byron [1788-1824]
ON THE SEA
It keeps eternal whisperings around Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound. Often 'tis in such gentle temper found, That scarcely will the very smallest shell Be moved for days from whence it sometime fell, When last the winds of heaven were unbound. Oh ye! who have your eye-balls vexed and tired, Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea; Oh ye! whose ears are dinned with uproar rude, Or fed too much with cloying melody,— Sit ye near some old cavern's mouth, and brood Until ye start, as if the sea-nymphs quired!
John Keats [1795-1821]
"WITH SHIPS THE SEA WAS SPRINKLED"
With ships the sea was sprinkled far and nigh, Like stars in heaven, and joyously it showed; Some lying fast at anchor in the road, Some veering up and down, one knew not why. A goodly vessel did I then espy Come like a giant from a haven broad; And lustily along the bay she strode, Her tackling rich, and of apparel high. This ship was naught to me, nor I to her, Yet I pursued her with a lover's look; This ship to all the rest did I prefer: When will she turn, and whither? She will brook No tarrying; where she comes the winds must stir: On went she,—and due north her journey took.
William Wordsworth [1770-1850]
A SONG OF DESIRE
Thou dreamer with the million moods, Of restless heart like me, Lay thy white hands against my breast And cool its pain, O Sea!
O wanderer of the unseen paths, Restless of heart as I, Blow hither, from thy caves of blue, Wind of the healing sky!
O treader of the fiery way, With passionate heart like mine, Hold to my lips thy healthful cup Brimmed with its blood-red wine!
O countless watchers of the night, Of sleepless heart like me, Pour your white beauty in my soul, Till I grow calm as ye!
O sea, O sun, O wind and stars, (O hungry heart that longs!) Feed my starved lips with life, with love, And touch my tongue with songs!
Frederic Lawrence Knowles [1869-1905]
THE PINES AND THE SEA
Beyond the low marsh-meadows and the beach, Seen through the hoary trunks of windy pines, The long blue level of the ocean shines. The distant surf, with hoarse, complaining speech, Out from its sandy barrier seems to reach; And while the sun behind the woods declines, The moaning sea with sighing boughs combines, And waves and pines make answer, each to each. O melancholy soul, whom far and near, In life, faith, hope, the same sad undertone Pursues from thought to thought! thou needs must hear An old refrain, too much, too long thine own: 'Tis thy mortality infects thine ear; The mournful strain was in thyself alone.
Christopher Pearse Cranch [1813-1892]
SEA FEVER
I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky, And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by; And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking, And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied; And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying, And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the seagulls crying.
I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gipsy life, To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife; And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.
John Masefield [1878-
HASTINGS MILL
As I went down by Hastings Mill I lingered in my going To smell the smell of piled-up deals and feel the salt wind blowing, To hear the cables fret and creak and the ropes stir and sigh (Shipmate, my shipmate!) as in days gone by.
As I went down by Hastings Mill I saw a ship there lying, About her tawny yards the little clouds of sunset flying; And half I took her for the ghost of one I used to know (Shipmate, my shipmate!) many years ago.
As I went down by Hastings Mill I saw while I stood dreaming The flicker of her riding light along the ripples streaming, The bollards where we made her fast and the berth where she did lie (Shipmate, my shipmate!) in the days gone by.
As I went down by Hastings Mill I heard a fellow singing, Chipping off the deep sea rust above the tide a-swinging, And well I knew the queer old tune and well the song he sung (Shipmate, my shipmate!) when the world was young.
And past the rowdy Union Wharf, and by the still tide sleeping, To a randy dandy deep sea tune my heart in time was keeping, To the thin far sound of a shadowy watch a-hauling, And the voice of one I knew across the high tide calling (Shipmate, my shipmate!) and the late dusk falling!
Cecily Fox-Smith [1882-
"A WET SHEET AND A FLOWING SEA"
A wet sheet and a flowing sea, A wind that follows fast, And fills the white and rustling sail, And bends the gallant mast; And bends the gallant mast, my boys, While, like the eagle free, Away the good ship flies, and leaves Old England on the lee.
O for a soft and gentle wind! I heard a fair one cry; But give to me the snoring breeze And white waves heaving high; And white waves heaving high, my boys, The good ship tight and free— The world of waters is our home, And merry men are we.
There's tempest in yon horned moon, And lightning in yon cloud; And hark the music, mariners! The wind is piping loud; The wind is piping loud, my boys, The lightning flashes free— While the hollow oak our palace is, Our heritage the sea.
Allan Cunningham [1784-1842]
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 regions 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 wheresoe'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, When every mad wave drowns the moon Or whistles aloft his tempest tune, And tells how goeth the world below, And why the sou'west blasts do blow.
I never was on the dull, tame shore, But I loved the great sea more and more. And backwards flew to her billowy breast, Like a bird that seeketh its 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; And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled, And the dolphins bared their backs of gold; And never was heard such an outcry wild As welcomed to life the ocean-child!
I've lived since then, in calm and strife, Full fifty summers, a sailor's life, With wealth to spend and a power to range, But never have sought nor sighed for change; And Death, whenever he comes to me, Shall come on the wild, unbounded sea!
Bryan Waller Procter [1787-1874]
SAILOR'S SONG From "Death's Jest-Book"
To 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 wide-winged bark Shall billowy cleave its sunny way, And with its shadow, fleet and dark, Break the caved Tritons' azure day, Like mighty eagle soaring light O'er antelopes on Alpine height. The anchor heaves, the ship swings free, The sails swell full. To sea, to sea!
Thomas Lovell Beddoes [1803-1849]
"A LIFE ON THE OCEAN WAVE"
A life on the ocean wave, A home on the rolling deep, Where the scattered waters rave, And the winds their revels keep! Like an eagle caged, I pine On this dull, unchanging shore: Oh! give me the flashing brine, The spray and the tempest's roar!
Once more on the deck I stand Of my own swift-gliding craft: Set sail! farewell to the land! The gale follows fair abaft. We shoot through the sparkling foam Like an ocean-bird set free;— Like the ocean-bird, our home We'll find far out on the sea.
The land is no longer in view, The clouds have begun to frown; But with a stout vessel and crew, We'll say, Let the storm come down! And the song of our hearts shall be, While the winds and the waters rave, A home on the rolling sea! A life on the ocean wave!
Epes Sargent [1813-1880]
TACKING SHIP OFF SHORE
The weather-leech of the topsail shivers, The bowlines strain, and the lee-shrouds slacken, The braces are taut, the lithe boom quivers, And the waves with the coming squall-cloud blacken.
Open one point on the weather-bow, Is the lighthouse tall on Fire Island Head. There's a shade of doubt on the captain's brow, And the pilot watches the heaving lead.
I stand at the wheel, and with eager eye To sea and to sky and to shore I gaze, Till the muttered order of "Full and by!" Is suddenly changed for "Full for stays!"
The ship bends lower before the breeze, As her broadside fair to the blast she lays; And she swifter springs to the rising seas, As the pilot calls, "Stand by for stays!"
It is silence all, as each in his place, With the gathered coil in his hardened hands, By tack and bowline, by sheet and brace, Waiting the watchword impatient stands.
And the light on Fire Island Head draws near, As, trumpet-winged, the pilot's shout From his post on the bowsprit's heel I hear, With the welcome call of "Ready! About!"
No time to spare! It is touch and go; And the captain growls, "Down helm! hard down!" As my weight on the whirling spokes I throw, While heaven grows black with the storm-cloud's frown.
High o'er the knight-heads flies the spray, As we meet the shock of the plunging sea; And my shoulder stiff to the wheel I lay, As I answer, "Ay, ay, sir! Ha-a-rd a-lee!"
With the swerving leap of a startled steed The ship flies fast in the eye of the wind, The dangerous shoals on the lee recede, And the headland white we have left behind.
The topsails flutter, the jibs collapse, And belly and tug at the groaning cleats; The spanker slats, and the mainsail flaps; And thunders the order, "Tacks and sheets!"
Mid the rattle of blocks and the tramp of the crew, Hisses the rain of the rushing squall: The sails are aback from clew to clew, And now is the moment for "Mainsail, haul!"
And the heavy yards, like a baby's toy, By fifty strong arms are swiftly swung: She holds her way, and I look with joy For the first white spray o'er the bulwarks flung.
"Let go, and haul!" 'Tis the last command, And the head-sails fill to the blast once more: Astern and to leeward lies the land, With its breakers white on the shingly shore.
What matters the reef, or the rain, or the squall? I steady the helm for the open sea; The first mate clamors, "Belay, there, all!" And the captain's breath once more comes free.
And so off shore let the good ship fly; Little care I how the gusts may blow, In my fo'castle bunk, in a jacket dry. Eight bells have struck, and my watch is below.
Walter Mitchell [1826-1908]
IN OUR BOAT
Stars trembling o'er us and sunset before us, Mountains in shadow and forests asleep; Down the dim river we float on forever, Speak not, ah, breathe not—there's peace on the deep.
Come not, pale sorrow, flee till to-morrow; Rest softly falling o'er eyelids that weep; While down the river we float on forever, Speak not, ah, breathe not—there's peace on the deep.
As the waves cover the depths we glide over, So let the past in forgetfulness sleep, While down the river we float on forever, Speak not, ah, breathe not—there's peace on the deep.
Heaven shine above us, bless all that love us; All whom we love in thy tenderness keep! While down the river we float on forever, Speak not, ah, breathe not—there's peace on the deep.
Dinah Maria Mulock Craik [1826-1887]
POOR JACK
Go, patter to lubbers and swabs, do ye see, 'Bout danger, and fear, and the like; A water-tight boat and good sea-room for me, And it ain't to a little I'll strike. Though the tempest topgallant-masts smack smooth should smite, And shiver each splinter of wood,— Clear the deck, stow the yards, and house everything tight, And under reefed foresail we'll scud: Avast! nor don't think me a milksop so soft To be taken for trifles aback; For they say there's a Providence sits up aloft, To keep watch for the life of poor Jack!
I heard our good chaplain palaver one day About souls, heaven, mercy, and such; And, my timbers! what lingo he'd coil and belay; Why, 'twas just all as one as High Dutch; For he said how a sparrow can't founder, d'ye see, Without orders that come down below; And a many fine things that proved clearly to me That Providence takes us in tow: "For," says he, "do you mind me, let storms e'er so oft Take the topsails of sailors aback, There's a sweet little cherub that sits up aloft, To keep watch for the life of poor Jack!"
I said to our Poll,—for, d'ye see, she would cry, When last we weighed anchor for sea,— "What argufies sniveling and piping your eye? Why, what a blamed fool you must be! Can't you see, the world's wide, and there's room for us all, Both for seamen and lubbers ashore? And if to old Davy I should go, friend Poll, You never will hear of me more. What then? All's a hazard: come, don't be so soft: Perhaps I may laughing come back; For, d'ye see, there's a cherub sits smiling aloft, To keep watch for the life of poor Jack!"
D'ye mind me, a sailor should be every inch All as one as a piece of the ship, And with her brave the world, without offering to flinch From the moment the anchor's a-trip. As for me, in all weathers, all times, sides, and ends, Naught's a trouble from duty that springs, For my heart is my Poll's, and my rhino's my friend's, And as for my will, 'tis the king's. Even when my time comes, ne'er believe me so soft As for grief to be taken aback; For the same little cherub that sits up aloft Will look out a good berth for poor Jack!
Charles Dibdin [1745-1814]
"ROCKED IN THE CRADLE OF THE DEEP"
Rocked in the cradle of the deep I lay me down in peace to sleep; Secure I rest upon the wave, For Thou, O Lord! hast power to save. I know Thou wilt not slight my call, For Thou dost mark the sparrow's fall; And calm and peaceful shall I sleep, Rocked in the cradle of the deep.
When in the dead of night I lie And gaze upon the trackless sky, The star-bespangled heavenly scroll, The boundless waters as they roll,— I feel Thy wondrous power to save From perils of the stormy wave: Rocked in the cradle of the deep, I calmly rest and soundly sleep.
And such the trust that still were mine, Though stormy winds swept o'er the brine, Or though the tempest's fiery breath Roused me from sleep to wreck and death. In ocean cave, still safe with Thee The germ of immortality! And calm and peaceful shall I sleep, Rocked in the cradle of the deep.
Emma Hart Willard [1787-1870]
OUTWARD
Wither away, O Sailor! say? Under the night, under the day, Yearning sail and flying spray Out of the black into the blue, Where are the great Winds bearing you?
Never port shall lift for me Into the sky, out of the sea! Into the blue or into the black, Onward, outward, never back! Something mighty and weird and dim Calls me under the ocean rim!
Sailor under sun and moon, 'Tis the ocean's fatal rune. Under yon far rim of sky Twice ten thousand others lie. Love is sweet and home is fair, And your mother calls you there.
Onward, outward I must go Where the mighty currents flow. Home is anywhere for me On this purple-tented sea. Star and Wind and Sun my brothers, Ocean one of many mothers. Onward under sun and star Where the weird adventures are! Never port shall lift for me— I am Wind and Sky and Sea!
John G. Neihardt [1881-
A PASSER-BY
Whither, O splendid ship, thy white sails crowding, Leaning across the bosom of the urgent West, That fearest nor sea rising, nor sky clouding, Whither away, fair rover, and what thy quest? Ah! soon, when Winter has all our vales oppressed, When skies are cold and misty, and hail is hurling, Wilt thou glide on the blue Pacific, or rest In a summer haven asleep, thy white sails furling.
I there before thee, in the country that well thou knowest, Already arrived, am inhaling the odorous air: I watch thee enter unerringly where thou goest, And anchor queen of the strange shipping there, Thy sails for awnings spread, thy masts bare: Nor is aught from the foaming reef to the snow-capped grandest Peak, that is over the feathery palms, more fair Than thou, so upright, so stately and still thou standest.
And yet, O splendid ship, unhailed and nameless, I know not if, aiming a fancy, I rightly divine That thou hast a purpose joyful, a courage blameless, Thy port assured in a happier land than mine. But for all I have given thee, beauty enough is thine, As thou, aslant with trim tackle and shrouding, From the proud nostril curve of a prow's line In the offing scatterest foam, thy white sails crowding.
Robert Bridges [1844-1930]
OFF RIVIERE DU LOUP
O ship incoming from the sea With all your cloudy tower of sail, Dashing the water to the lee, And leaning grandly to the gale,
The sunset pageant in the west Has filled your canvas curves with rose, And jeweled every toppling crest That crashes into silver snows!
You know the joy of coming home, After long leagues to France or Spain You feel the clear Canadian foam And the gulf water heave again.
Between these somber purple hills That cool the sunset's molten bars, You will go on as the wind wills, Beneath the river's roof of stars.
You will toss onward toward the lights That spangle over the lonely pier, By hamlets glimmering on the heights, By level islands black and clear.
You will go on beyond the tide, Through brimming plains of olive sedge, Through paler shadows light and wide, The rapids piled along the ledge.
At evening off some reedy bay You will swing slowly on your chain, And catch the scent of dewy hay, Soft blowing from the pleasant plain.
Duncan Campbell Scott [1862-
CHRISTMAS AT SEA
The sheets were frozen hard, and they cut the naked hand; The decks were like a slide, where a seaman scarce could stand; The wind was a nor'-wester, blowing squally off the sea; And cliffs and spouting breakers were the only things a-lee.
They heard the surf a-roaring before the break of day; But 'twas only with the peep of light we saw how ill we lay. We tumbled every hand on deck instanter, with a shout, And we gave her the maintops'l, and stood by to go about.
All day we tacked and tacked between the South Head and the North; All day we hauled the frozen sheets, and got no further forth; All day as cold as charity, in bitter pain and dread, For very life and nature we tacked from head to head.
We gave the South a wider berth, for there the tide-race roared; But every tack we made brought the North Head close aboard; So's we saw the cliffs and houses, and the breakers running high, And the coastguard in his garden, with his glass against his eye.
The frost was on the village roofs as white as ocean foam; The good red fires were burning bright in every 'longshore home; The windows sparkled clear, and the chimneys volleyed out; And I vow we sniffed the victuals as the vessel went about.
The bells upon the church were rung with a mighty jovial cheer; For it's just that I should tell you how (of all days in the year) This day of our adversity was blessed Christmas morn, And the house above the coastguard's was the house where I was born.
O well I saw the pleasant room, the pleasant faces there, My mother's silver spectacles, my father's silver hair; And well I saw the firelight, like a flight of homely elves, Go dancing round the china-plates that stand upon the shelves.
And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me, Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea; And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way, To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessed Christmas Day.
They lit the high sea-light, and the dark began to fall. "All hands to loose topgallant sails," I heard the captain call. "By the Lord, she'll never stand it," our first mate, Jackson, cried. "It's the one way or the other, Mr. Jackson," he replied.
She staggered to her bearings, but the sails were new and good, And the ship smelt up to windward, just as though she understood. As the winter's day was ending, in the entry of the night, We cleared the weary headland, and passed below the light.
And they heaved a mighty breath, every soul on board but me, As they saw her nose again pointing handsome out to sea; But all that I could think of, in the darkness and the cold, Was just that I was leaving home and my folks were growing old.
Robert Louis Stevenson [1850-1894]
THE PORT O' HEART'S DESIRE
Down around the quay they lie, the ships that sail to sea, On shore the brown-cheeked sailormen they pass the jest with me, But soon their ships will sail away with winds that never tire, And there's one that will be sailing to the Port o' Heart's Desire.
The Port o' Heart's Desire, and it's, oh, that port for me, And that's the ship that I love best of all that sail the sea; Its hold is filled with memories, its prow it points away To the Port o' Heart's Desire, where I roamed a boy at play.
Ships that sail for gold there be, and ships that sail for fame, And some were filled with jewels bright when from Cathay they came, But give me still yon white sail in the sunset's mystic fire, That the running tides will carry to the Port o' Heart's Desire.
It's you may have the gold and fame, and all the jewels, too, And all the ships, if they were mine, I'd gladly give to you, I'd give them all right gladly, with their gold and fame entire, If you would set me down within the Port o' Heart's Desire.
Oh, speed you, white-winged ship of mine, oh, speed you to the sea, Some other day, some other tide, come back again for me; Come back with all the memories, the joys and e'en the pain, And take me to the golden hills of boyhood once again.
John S. McGroarty [1862-
ON THE QUAY
I've never traveled for more'n a day, I never was one to roam, But I likes to sit on the busy quay, Watchin' the ships that says to me— "Always somebody goin' away, Somebody gettin' home."
I likes to think that the world's so wide— 'Tis grand to be livin' there, Takin' a part in its goin's on.... Ah, now ye're laughin' at poor old John, Talkin' o' works o' the world wi' pride As if he was doin' his share!
But laugh if ye will! When ye're old as me Ye'll find 'tis a rare good plan To look at the world—an' love it too!— Though never a job are ye fit to do.... Oh! 'tisn't all sorrow an' pain to see The work o' another man.
'Tis good when the heart grows big at last, Too big for trouble to fill— Wi' room for the things that was only stuff When workin' an' winnin' seemed more'n enough— Room for the world, the world so vast, Wi' its peoples an' all their skill.
That's what I'm thinkin' on all the days I'm loafin' an' smokin' here, An' the ships do make me think the most (Of readin' in books 'tis little I'd boast),— But the ships, they carries me long, long ways, An' draws far places near.
I sees the things that a sailor brings, I hears the stories he tells.... 'Tis surely a wonderful world, indeed! 'Tis more'n the peoples can ever need! An' I praises the Lord—to myself I sings— For the world in which I dwells.
An' I loves the ships more every day Though I never was one to roam. Oh! the ships is comfortin' sights to see, An' they means a lot when they says to me— "Always somebody goin' away, Somebody gettin' home."
John Joy Bell [1871-1934]
THE FORGING OF THE ANCHOR
Come, see the Dolphin's anchor forged! 'tis at a white heat now— The bellows ceased, the flames decreased; though, on the forge's brow, The little flames still fitfully play through the sable mound, And fitfully you still may see the grim smiths ranking round; All clad in leathern panoply, their broad hands only bare, Some rest upon their sledges here, some work the windlass there.
The windlass strains the tackle-chains—the black mold heaves below; And red and deep, a hundred veins burst out at every throe. It rises, roars, rends all outright—O Vulcan, what a glow! 'Tis blinding white, 'tis blasting bright—the high sun shines not so! The high sun sees not, on the earth, such fiery fearful show! The roof-ribs swarth, the candent hearth, the ruddy lurid row
Of smiths that stand, an ardent band, like men before the foe! As, quivering through his fleece of flame, the sailing monster slow Sinks on the anvil—all about, the faces fiery grow: "Hurrah!" they shout, "leap out, leap out!" bang, bang! the sledges go; Hurrah! the jetted lightnings are hissing high and low; A hailing fount of fire is struck at every squashing blow; The leathern mail rebounds the hail; the rattling cinders strow The ground around; at every bound the sweltering fountains flow; And, thick and loud, the swinking crowd at every stroke pant "ho!"
Leap out, leap out, my masters! leap out, and lay on load! Let's forge a goodly anchor—a bower thick and broad; For a heart of oak is hanging on every blow, I bode; And I see the good ship riding, all in a perilous road,— The low reef roaring on her lee; the roll of ocean poured From stem to stern, sea after sea; the mainmast by the board; The bulwarks down; the rudder gone; the boats stove at the chains; But courage still, brave mariners—the bower yet remains! And not an inch to flinch he deigns—save when ye pitch sky high; Then moves his head, as though he said, "Fear nothing—here am I!"
Swing in your strokes in order; let foot and hand keep time; Your blows make music sweeter far than any steeple's chime. But while ye swing your sledges, sing, and let the burthen be— The anchor is the anvil king, and royal craftsmen we! Strike in, strike in!—the sparks begin to dull their rustling red; Our hammers ring with sharper din—our work will soon be sped; Our anchor soon must change his bed of fiery rich array For a hammock at the roaring bows, or an oozy couch of clay; Our anchor soon must change the lay of merry craftsmen here For the yeo-heave-o, and the heave-away, and the sighing seamen's cheer— When, weighing slow, at eve they go, far, far from love and home; And sobbing sweethearts, in a row, wail o'er the ocean—foam.
In livid and obdurate gloom, he darkens down at last; A shapely one he is, and strong, as e'er from cat was cast. O trusted and trustworthy guard! if thou hadst life like me, What pleasure would thy toils reward beneath the deep-green sea! O deep sea-diver, who might then behold such sights as thou?— The hoary monster's palaces!—Methinks what joy 'twere now To go plumb-plunging down, amid the assembly of the whales, And feel the churned sea round me boil beneath their scourging tails! Then deep in tangle-woods to fight the fierce sea-unicorn, And send him foiled and bellowing back, for all his ivory horn; To leave the subtle sworder-fish of bony blade forlorn; And for the ghastly-grinning shark, to laugh his jaws to scorn: To leap down on the kraken's back, where 'mid Norwegian isles He lies, a lubber anchorage for sudden shallowed miles— Till, snorting like an under-sea volcano, off he rolls; Meanwhile to swing, a-buffeting the far astonished shoals Of his back-browsing ocean-calves; or, haply, in a cove Shell-strown, and consecrate of old to some Undine's love, To find the long-haired mermaidens; or, hard by icy lands, To wrestle with the sea-serpent, upon cerulean sands.
O broad-armed fisher of the deep! whose sports can equal thine? The Dolphin weighs a thousand tons, that tugs thy cable—line; And night by night 'tis thy delight, thy glory day by day, Through sable sea and breaker white the giant game to play. But, shamer of our little sports! forgive the name I gave: A fisher's joy is to destroy—thine office is to save. O lodger in the sea-kings' halls! couldst thou but understand Whose be the white bones by thy side—or who that dripping band, Slow swaying in the heaving wave, that round about thee bend, With sounds like breakers in a dream blessing their ancient friend— Oh, couldst thou know what heroes glide with larger steps round thee, Thine iron side would swell with pride—-thou'dst leap within the sea!
Give honor to their memories who left the pleasant strand To shed their blood so freely for the love of fatherland— Who left their chance of quiet age and grassy churchyard grave So freely, for a restless bed amid the tossing wave! Oh, though our anchor may not be all I have fondly sung, Honor him for their memory whose bones he goes among!
Samuel Ferguson [1810-1886]
DRIFTING
My soul to-day Is far away, Sailing the Vesuvian Bay; My winged boat, A bird afloat, Swings round the purple peaks remote:—
Round purple peaks It sails, and seeks Blue inlets and their crystal creeks, Where high rocks throw, Through deeps below, A duplicated golden glow.
Far, vague, and dim, The mountains swim; While on Vesuvius' misty brim, With outstretched hands, The gray smoke stands O'erlooking the volcanic lands.
Here Ischia smiles O'er liquid miles; And yonder, bluest of the isles, Calm Capri waits, Her sapphire gates Beguiling to her bright estates.
I heed not, if My rippling skiff Float swift or slow from cliff to cliff; With dreamful eyes My spirit lies Under the walls of Paradise.
Under the walls Where swells and falls The Bay's deep breast at intervals, At peace I lie, Blown softly by, A cloud upon this liquid sky.
The day, so mild, Is Heaven's own child, With Earth and Ocean reconciled; The airs I feel Around me steal Are murmuring to the murmuring keel.
Over the rail My hand I trail Within the shadow of the sail, A joy intense, The cooling sense Glides down my drowsy indolence.
With dreamful eyes My spirit lies Where Summer sings and never dies,— O'erveiled with vines She glows and shines Among her future oil and wines.
Her children, hid The cliffs amid, Are gamboling with the gamboling kid; Or down the walls, With tipsy calls, Laugh on the rocks like waterfalls.
The fisher's child, With tresses wild, Unto the smooth, bright sand beguiled, With glowing lips Sings as she skips, Or gazes at the far-off ships.
Yon deep bark goes Where traffic blows, From lands of sun to lands of snows;— This happier one, Its course is run From lands of snow to lands of sun.
O happy ship, To rise and dip, With the blue crystal at your lip! O happy crew, My heart with you Sails, and sails, and sings anew!
No more, no more The worldly shore Upbraids me with its loud uproar! With dreamful eyes My spirit lies Under the walls of Paradise!
Thomas Buchanan Read [1822-1872]
"HOW'S MY BOY?"
"Ho, sailor of the sea! How's my boy—my boy?" "What's your boy's name, good wife, And in what good ship sailed he?"
"My boy John— He that went to sea— What care I for the ship, sailor? My boy's my boy to me.
"You come back from sea And not know my John? I might as well have asked some landsman Yonder down in the town. There's not an ass in all the parish But he knows my John.
"How's my boy—my boy? And unless you let me know, I'll swear you are no sailor, Blue jacket or no, Brass button or no, sailor, Anchor and crown or no! Sure his ship was the Jolly Briton."— "Speak low, woman, speak low!"
"And why should I speak low, sailor, About my own boy John? If I was loud as I am proud I'd sing him o'er the town! Why should I speak low, sailor?" "That good ship went down."
"How's my boy—my boy? What care I for the ship, sailor, I never was aboard her. Be she afloat, or be she aground, Sinking or swimming, I'll be bound, Her owners can afford her! I say, how's my John?" "Every man on board went down, Every man aboard her."
"How's my boy—my boy? What care I for the men, sailor? I'm not their mother— How's my boy—my boy? Tell me of him and no other! How's my boy—my boy?"
Sydney Dobell [1824-1874]
THE LONG WRITE SEAM
As I came round the harbor buoy, The lights began to gleam, No wave the land-locked water stirred, The crags were white as cream; And I marked my love by candlelight Sewing her long white seam. It's aye sewing ashore, my dear, Watch and steer at sea, It's reef and furl, and haul the line, Set sail and think of thee.
I climbed to reach her cottage door; O sweetly my love sings! Like a shaft of light her voice breaks forth, My soul to meet it springs As the shining water leaped of old, When stirred by angel wings. Aye longing to list anew, Awake and in my dream, But never a song she sang like this, Sewing her long white seam.
Fair fall the lights, the harbor lights, That brought me in to thee, And peace drop down on that low roof For the sight that I did see, And the voice, my dear, that rang so clear All for the love of me. For O, for O, with brows bent low By the candle's flickering gleam, Her wedding-gown it was she wrought. Sewing the long white seam.
Jean Ingelow [1820-1897]
STORM SONG
The clouds are scudding across the moon; A misty light is on the sea; The wind in the shrouds has a wintry tune, And the foam is flying free.
Brothers, a night of terror and gloom Speaks in the cloud and gathering roar; Thank God, He has given us broad sea-room, A thousand miles from shore.
Down with the hatches on those who sleep! The wild and whistling deck have we; Good watch, my brothers, to-night we'll keep, While the tempest is on the sea!
Though the rigging shriek in his terrible grip, And the naked spars be snapped away, Lashed to the helm, we'll drive our ship In the teeth of the whelming spray!
Hark! how the surges o'erleap the deck! Hark! how the pitiless tempest raves! Ah, daylight will look upon many a wreck Drifting over the desert waves.
Yet, courage, brothers! we trust the wave, With God above us, our guiding chart. So, whether to harbor or ocean-grave, Be it still with a cheery heart!
Bayard Taylor [1825-1878]
THE MARINER'S DREAM
In slumbers of midnight the sailor-boy lay; His hammock swung loose at the sport of the wind; But watch-worn and weary, his cares flew away, And visions of happiness danced o'er his mind.
He dreamed of his home, of his dear native bowers, And pleasures that waited on life's merry morn; While Memory stood sideways, half covered with flowers, And restored every rose, but secreted its thorn.
Then Fancy her magical pinions spread wide, And bade the young dreamer in ecstasy rise; Now far, far behind him the green waters glide, And the cot of his forefathers blesses his eyes.
The jessamine clambers in flowers o'er the thatch, And the swallow sings sweet from her nest in the wall; All trembling with transport he raises the latch, And the voices of loved ones reply to his call.
A father bends o'er him with looks of delight; His cheek is impearled with a mother's warm tear; And the lips of the boy in a love-kiss unite With the lips of the maid whom his bosom holds dear.
The heart of the sleeper beats high in his breast; Joy quickens his pulses, his hardships seem o'er; And a murmur of happiness steals through his rest,— "O God! thou hast blessed me,—I ask for no more."
Ah! whence is that flame which now bursts on his eye? Ah! what is that sound which now larums his ear? 'Tis the lightning's red glare, painting hell on the sky! 'Tis the crash of the thunder, the groan of the sphere!
He springs from his hammock, he flies to the deck; Amazement confronts him with images dire; Wild winds and mad waves drive the vessel a wreck; The masts fly in splinters; the shrouds are on fire.
Like mountains the billows tremendously swell; In vain the lost wretch calls on mercy to save; Unseen hands of spirits are ringing his knell, And the death-angel flaps his broad wing o'er the wave!
O sailor-boy, woe to thy dream of delight! In darkness dissolves the gay frost-work of bliss. Where now is the picture that Fancy touched bright,— Thy parents' fond pressure, and love's honeyed kiss?
O sailor-boy! sailor-boy! never again Shall home, love, or kindred thy wishes repay; Unblessed and unhonored, down deep in the main, Full many a fathom, thy frame shall decay.
No tomb shall e'er plead to remembrance for thee, Or redeem form or fame from the merciless surge; But the white foam of waves shall thy winding-sheet be, And winds, in the midnight of winter, thy dirge!
On a bed of green sea-flowers thy limbs shall be laid,— Around thy white bones the red coral shall grow; Of thy fair yellow locks threads of amber be made, And every part suit to thy mansion below.
Days, months, years, and ages shall circle away, And still the vast waters above thee shall roll; Earth loses thy pattern forever and aye,— O sailor-boy! sailor-boy! peace to thy soul!
William Dimond [1780?-1837?]
THE INCHCAPE ROCK
No stir in the air, no stir in the sea, The ship was still as she could be; Her sails from Heaven received no motion, Her keel was steady in the ocean.
Without either sign or sound of their shock, The waves flowed over the Inchcape Rock; So little they rose, so little they fell, They did not move the Inchcape Bell.
The holy Abbot of Aberbrothok Had placed that bell on the Inchcape Rock; On a buoy in the storm it floated and swung, And over the waves its warning rung.
When the rock was hid by the surges' swell, The mariners heard the warning bell; And then they knew the perilous Rock, And blessed the Abbot of Aberbrothok.
The Sun in heaven was shining gay, All things were joyful on that day; The sea-birds screamed as they wheeled around, And there was joyance in their sound.
The buoy of the Inchcape Bell was seen, A darker speck on the ocean green; Sir Ralph, the Rover, walked his deck, And he fixed his eye on the darker speck.
He felt the cheering power of spring, It made him whistle, it made him sing; His heart was mirthful to excess; But the Rover's mirth was wickedness.
His eye was on the Inchcape float; Quoth he, "My men, put out the boat; And row me to the Inchcape Rock, And I'll plague the Abbot of Aberbrothok."
The boat is lowered, the boatmen row, And to the Inchcape Rock they go; Sir Ralph bent over from the boat, And cut the Bell from the Inchcape float.
Down sank the Bell with a gurgling sound; The bubbles rose, and burst around. Quoth Sir Ralph, "The next who comes to the Rock Will not bless the Abbot of Aberbrothok."
Sir Ralph, the Rover, sailed away, He scoured the seas for many a day; And now, grown rich with plundered store, He steers his course for Scotland's shore.
So thick a haze o'erspreads the sky They cannot see the Sun on high; The wind hath blown a gale all day; At evening it hath died away.
On the deck the Rover takes his stand; So dark it is they see no land. Quoth Sir Ralph, "It will be lighter soon, For there is the dawn of the rising Moon."
"Canst hear," said one, "the breakers roar? For yonder, methinks, should be the shore." "Now where we are I cannot tell, But I wish we could hear the Inchcape Bell."
They hear no sound; the swell is strong; Though the wind hath fallen, they drift along, Till the vessel strikes with a shivering shock,— "O Christ! it is the Inchcape Rock."
Sir Ralph, the Rover, tore his hair; He cursed himself in his despair. The waves rush in on every side; The ship is sinking beneath the tide.
But, even in his dying fear, One dreadful sound he seemed to hear,— A sound as if, with the Inchcape Bell, The Devil below was ringing his knell.
Robert Southey [1774-1843]
THE SEA
Through the night, through the night, In the saddest unrest, Wrapped in white, all in white, With her babe on her breast, Walks the mother so pale, Staring out on the gale, Through the night!
Through the night, through the night, Where the sea lifts the wreck, Land in sight, close in sight, On the surf-flooded deck, Stands the father so brave, Driving on to his grave Through the night!
Richard Henry Stoddard [1825-1903]
THE SANDS OF DEE
"O Mary, go and call the cattle home, And call the cattle home, And call the cattle home Across the sands of Dee!" The western wind was wild and dank with foam, And all alone went she.
The western tide crept up along the sand, And o'er and o'er the sand, And round and round the sand, As far as eye could see. The rolling mist came down and hid the land: And never home came she.
"Oh! is it weed, or fish, or floating hair— A tress of golden hair, A drowned maiden's hair Above the nets at sea? Was never salmon yet that shone so fair Among the stakes on Dee."
They rowed her in across the rolling foam, The cruel crawling foam, The cruel hungry foam, To her grave beside the sea: But still the boatmen hear her call the cattle home Across the sands of Dee!
Charles Kingsley [1819-1875]
THE THREE FISHERS
Three fishers went sailing away to the West, Away to the West as the sun went down; Each thought on the woman who loved him the best, And the children stood watching them out of the town; For men must work, and women must weep, And there's little to earn, and many to keep, Though the harbor bar be moaning.
Three wives sat up in the lighthouse tower And they trimmed the lamps as the sun went down; They looked at the squall, and they looked at the shower, And the night-rack came rolling up ragged and brown. But men must work, and women must weep, Though storms be sudden, and waters deep, And the harbor bar be moaning.
Three corpses lay out on the shining sands In the morning gleam as the tide went down, And the women are weeping and wringing their hands For those who will never come home to the town; For men must work, and women must weep, And the sooner it's over, the sooner to sleep; And good-by to the bar and its moaning.
Charles Kingsley [1819-1875]
BALLAD
In the summer even, While yet the dew was hoar, I went plucking purple pansies, Till my love should come to shore. The fishing-lights their dances Were keeping out at sea, And come, I sung, my true love! Come hasten home to me!
But the sea, it fell a-moaning, And the white gulls rocked thereon; And the young moon dropped from heaven, And the lights hid one by one. All silently their glances Slipped down the cruel sea, And wait! cried the night and wind and storm,— Wait, till I come to thee!
Harriet Prescott Spofford [1835-1921]
THE NORTHERN STAR A Tynemouth Ship
The Northern Star Sailed over the bar Bound to the Baltic Sea; In the morning gray She stretched away:— 'Twas a weary day to me!
For many an hour In sleet and shower By the lighthouse rock I stray; And watch till dark For the winged bark Of him that is far away.
The castle's bound I wander round, Amidst the grassy graves: But all I hear Is the north wind drear, And all I see are the waves.
The Northern Star Is set afar! Set in the Baltic Sea: And the waves have spread The sandy bed That holds my Love from me.
Unknown
THE FISHER'S WIDOW
The boats go out and the boats come in Under the wintry sky; And the rain and foam are white in the wind, And the white gulls cry.
She sees the sea when the wind is wild Swept by a windy rain; And her heart's a-weary of sea and land As the long days wane.
She sees the torn sails fly in the foam, Broad on the sky-line gray; And the boats go out and the boats come in, But there's one away.
Arthur Symons [1865-
CALLER HERRIN'
Wha'll buy my caller herrin'? They're bonny fish and halesome farin'; Wha'll buy my caller herrin', New drawn frae the Forth?
When ye were sleepin' on your pillows, Dreamed ye aught o' our puir fellows, Darkling as they faced the billows, A' to fill the woven willows? Buy my caller herrin', New drawn frae the Forth! |
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