Ye mariners of England!
That guard our native seas;
Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze!
Your glorious standard launch again
To match another foe!
And sweep through the deep,
While the stormy winds do blow;
While the battle rages loud and long,
And the stormy winds do blow.
The...
The Sea was bright, and the bark rode well;
The breeze bore the tone of the vesper bell;
’T was a gallant bark with a crew as brave
As ever launched on the heaving wave.
She shone in the light of declining day,
And each sail was set, and each heart was gay.
They neared the land where in beauty smiles
The sunny shore of the Grecian Isles...
Our boat to the waves go free,
By the bending tide, where the curled wave breaks,
Like the track of the wind on the white snowflakes:
Away, away! ’T is a path o’er the sea.
Blasts may rave,—spread the sail,
For our spirits can wrest the power from the wind,
And the gray clouds yield to the sunny mind,
Fear not we the whirl of...
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:
O, 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:...
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 mermaid’s pearly song
Comes bubbling up, the weeds among.
Fling broad the sail, dip deep the oar:
To sea! to sea! the calm is o’er.
To sea! to sea! our white-winged bark...
The Twilight hours, like birds, flew by,
As lightly and as free,
Ten thousand stars were in the sky,
Ten thousand on the sea;
For every wave, with dimpled face,
That leaped upon the air,
Had caught a star in its embrace,
And held it trembling there.
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 light-house tall on Fire Island Head?
There’s a shade of doubt on the captain’s brow,
And the pilot...
Cease, rude Boreas, blustering railer!
List, ye landsmen, all to me,
Messmates, hear a brother sailor
Sing the dangers of the sea;
From bounding billows, first in motion,
When the distant whirlwinds rise,
To the tempest-troubled ocean,
Where the seas contend with skies.
Hark! the boatswain hoarsely bawling,
...
From “Don Juan,” Canto II.
THEN rose from sea to sky the wild farewell—
Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave,—
Then some leaped overboard with dreadful yell,
As eager to anticipate their grave;
And the sea yawned around her like a hell,
And down she sucked with her the whirling wave,
Like one who grapples with his enemy,...
IN vain the cords and axes were prepared,
For now the audacious seas insult the yard;
High o’er the ship they throw a horrid shade,
And o’er her burst in terrible cascade.
Uplifted on the surge, to heaven she flies,
Her shattered top half buried in the skies,
Then headlong plunging thunders on the ground;
Earth groans! air trembles! and...
