The Land of Song Volume Ii Part 7

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 southwest blasts do blow.

I never was on the dull, tame sh.o.r.e, 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 come to me, Shall come on the wide, unbounded sea!

BRYAN WALLER PROCTER (_Barry Cornwall_).

AT 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.

"Oh 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 lads, 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; But 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

THE NORTHERN SEAS.

Up! up! let us a voyage take; Why sit we here at ease?

Find us a vessel tight and snug, Bound for the northern seas.

I long to see the northern lights With their rushing splendors fly, Like living things with flaming wings, Wide o'er the wondrous sky.

I long to see those icebergs vast, With heads all crowned with snow, Whose green roots sleep in the awful deep, Two hundred fathoms low.

I long to hear the thundering crash Of their terrific fall, And the echoes from a thousand cliffs Like lonely voices call.

There shall we see the fierce white bear, The sleepy seals aground, And the spouting whales that to and fro Sail with a dreary sound.

There may we tread on depths of ice, That the hairy mammoth hide; Perfect as when, in times of old, The mighty creature died.

And while the unsetting sun shines on Through the still heaven's deep blue, We'll traverse the azure waves, the herds Of the dread sea horse to view.

We'll pa.s.s the sh.o.r.es of solemn pine, Where wolves and black bears prowl; And away to the rocky isles of mist, To rouse the northern fowl.

Up there shall start ten thousand wings With a rustling, whistling din; Up shall the auk and fulmar start, All but the fat penguin.

And there in the wastes of the silent sky, With the silent earth below, We shall see far off to his lonely rock The lonely eagle go.

Then softly, softly will we tread By inland streams, to see Where the pelican of the silent North Sits there all silently.

MARY HOWITT.

THE CORAL GROVE.

Deep in the wave is a coral grove, Where the purple mullet and goldfish rove; Where the sea flower spreads its leaves of blue, That never are wet with the falling dew; But in bright and changeful beauty shine, Far down in the green and gla.s.sy brine.

The floor is of sand, like the mountain's drift, And the pearl sh.e.l.ls spangle the flinty snow; From coral rocks the sea plants lift Their boughs, where the tides and billows flow.

The water is calm and still below, For the winds and waves are absent there, And the sands are bright as the stars that glow In the motionless fields of upper air.

There, with its waving blade of green, The sea flag streams through the silent water, And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen To blush like a banner bathed in slaughter; There, with a light and easy motion, The fan coral sweeps through the clear, deep sea; And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean Are bending like corn on the upland lea: And life in rare and beautiful forms Is sporting amid those bowers of stone, And is safe, when the wrathful spirit of storms Has made the top of the waves his own: And when the ship from his fury flies, When the myriad voices of ocean roar, When the wind G.o.d frowns in the murky skies, And demons are waiting the wreck on sh.o.r.e, Then, far below, in the peaceful sea, The purple mullet and goldfish rove, Where the waters murmur tranquilly Through the bending twigs of the coral grove.

JAMES GATES PERCIVAL.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

ALICE BRAND.

Merry it is in the good greenwood, When the mavis and merle are singing, When the deer sweeps by, and the hounds are in cry, And the hunter's horn is ringing.

"O Alice Brand, my native land Is lost for love of you; And we must hold by wood and wold, As outlaws wont to do!

"O Alice, 'twas all for thy locks so bright, And 'twas all for thine eyes so blue, That on the night of our luckless flight, Thy brother bold I slew.

"Now I must teach to hew the beech The hand that held the glaive, For leaves to spread our lowly bed, And stakes to fence our cave.

"And for vest of pall, thy fingers small, That wont on harp to stray, A cloak must shear from the slaughtered deer, To keep the cold away."

"O Richard! if my brother died, 'Twas but a fatal chance: For darkling was the battle tried, And fortune sped the lance.