My pensive SARA ! thy soft cheek reclined
Thus on mine arm, most soothing sweet it is
To sit beside our Cot, our Cot o'ergrown
With white-flower'd Jasmin, and the broad-leav'd Myrtle,
(Meet emblems they of Innocence and Love !)
And watch the clouds, that late were rich with light,
Slow saddenning round, and mark the star of eve
Serenely brilliant (such should Wisdom be)
Shine opposite ! How exquisite the scents
Snatch'd from yon bean-field ! and the world so hush'd !
The stilly murmur of the distant Sea
Tells us of silence.

I tell you a tale to-night
Which a seaman told to me,
With eyes that gleamed in the lanthorn light
And a voice as low as the sea.

You could almost hear the stars
Twinkling up in the sky,
And the old wind woke and moaned in the spars
And the same old waves went by.

Singing the same old song
As ages and ages ago,
While he froze my blood in that deep-sea night
With the things he seemed to know.

A bare foot pattered on deck;
Ropes creaked; then-all grew still,
And he pointed his finger straight in my face

We part, and thou art mine no more!
I go through seas never sought before,
Where stars unknown to our native skies
Startle the mariner's watchful eyes.
Our bark shall over the waters sweep,
And rouse the children of the deep:
Around us, 'midst the silvery spray,
With glittering scales shall the dolphins play.
When scarcely flutters the snowy sail,
Gently waved by the whispering gale,
I shall gaze in the ocean's liquid glass,
And mark the hidden treasures we pass:
The amber and coral groves that glow

THEY all were looking for a king
   To slay their foes and lift them high:
Thou cam'st, a little baby thing
   That made a woman cry.

O Son of Man, to right my lot
   Naught but Thy presence can avail;
Yet on the road Thy wheels are not,
   Nor on the sea Thy sail!

My how or when Thou wilt not heed,
   But come down Thine own secret stair,
That Thou mayst answer all my need--
   Yea, every bygone prayer.

Such special sweetness was about
   That day God sent you here,
I knew the lavender was out,
   And it was mid of year.

Their common way the great winds blew,
   The ships sailed out to sea;
Yet ere that day was spent I knew
   Mine own had come to me.

As after song some snatch of tune
   Lurks still in grass or bough,
So, somewhat of the end o' June
   Lurks in each weather now.

The young year sets the buds astir,

Let us give thanks to God above,
Thanks for expressions of His love,
Seen in the book of nature, grand
Taught by His love on every hand.

Let us be thankful in our hearts,
Thankful for all the truth imparts,
For the religion of our Lord,
All that is taught us in His word.

Let us be thankful for a land,
That will for such religion stand;
One that protects it by the law,
One that before it stands in awe.

Thankful for all things let us be,
Though there be woes and misery;
Lessons they bring us for our good-

The serpent dips his head beneath the sea
His mother, source of all his energy
Eternal, thence to draw the strength he needs
On earth to do indomitable dees
Once more; and they, who saw but understood
Naught of his nature of beatitude
Were awed: they murmured with abated breath;
Alas the Master; so he sinks in death.
But whoso knows the mystery of man
Sees life and death as curves of one same plan.

From garden-beds I tend, it is not far
To those great ranges where he used to ride;
Time’s shadowy Door still stands a rift ajar,
And Fancy, glancing backward and aside,
May glimpse him whirling in a storm, of dust,
A flashing bronze against a burning sky,
Before a sea of tossing horns up-thrust,
A peril thousand-pronged, to breast or die;
Or lying with locked hands beneath his head,
Watching the stars beside a lonely fire,
About him dim immensity outspread
Within, dim gulfs of question and desire.

I said, "I will take my life
And throw it away;
I who was fire and song
Will turn to clay."

"I will lie no more in the night
With shaken breath,
I will toss my heart in the air
To be caught by Death."

But out of the night I heard,
Like the inland sound of the sea,
The hushed and terrible sob
Of all humanity.

Then I said, "Oh who am I
To scorn God to his face?
I will bow my head and stay
And suffer with my race."

I

Shakespeare and Milton--what third blazoned name
Shall lips of after-ages link to these?
His who, beside the wide encircling seas,
Was England's voice, her voice with one acclaim,
For threescore years; whose word of praise was fame,
Whose scorn gave pause to man's iniquities.

II

What strain was his in that Crimean war?
A bugle call in battle; a low breath,
Plaintive and sweet, above the fields of death!
So year by year the music rolled afar,
From Euxine wastes to flowery Kandahar,