Classic Poem

Dash on! dash on! ye crowned and crested waves,
In majesty pursue your wide career,
Gather your hosts from their resounding caves,
And plumed and marshalled in your ranks appear.
Waft on the ships of nations—let the wings
Of commerce whiten your Atlantic plain,
And lightly rock the sailor as he clings
With nought between the giddy mast and main.

How beautiful beneath the Heavens ye roll,
Foaming and glittering to the rocky shore,
Like white-maned coursers rushing towards their goal,
Whose housings gleam with jewels crusted o'er.
When clouds portend an elemental strife,
With what a solemn grandeur onward throng
Your countless bands as if with vengeance rife,
And eager for a combat, fierce and long!

Well do I love thee, ever glorious sea,
Whether upheaving thy tempestuous surge
Upon the strand, and bounding fast and free
With wild commotion to the horizon's verge,
Or peaceful slumbering, when the morning sky
Bends in translucent calmness o'er thy breast,
Or when, commingling with thy waters, lie
Eve's crimson banners on the fading west.

Oft have I dreamed in youth's creative time
Of all the lands thy billows bright surround,
Of level landscapes and of steeps sublime—
Broad bays, clear coves by storm-tost vessels found.
And of the silver, gold and gems that pave
The gloomiest depth of thy untrodden floor,
And of the wrecks, which every distant wave
Heaves up and heaps on many a desert shore.

Thou didst bereave me once of all the soul
Held best and dearest, and the shade of years
Doth not conceal the sorrow and the dole—
It cannot hide from memory the tears,
The disappointment, and regret and pain,
The blinding mists before the happy day
Of my young life, when, like the fallen rain,
My loved one sank within thy tombs away.

Yet do I love thee, infinite abyss!
For thou dost image the unchanging power
Of Him, whose feet thy wildest waters kiss,
Then sink to peace in midnight's darkest hour;
Of Him who, where thy liquid realms expand,
Or where they narrow to a gliding rill,
Holds thee forever in His hollow hand,
And bids the billows and the blast “Be still!”