The wake of the sea-ship, after she passes, flashing and frolicsome under the sun;

A motley procession with many a fleck of foam and many fragments,

Following the stately and rapid ship-in the wake following.

SELF DEPENDENCE.1

WHITMAN.

WEARY of myself, and sick of asking
What I am, and what I ought to be,
At the vessel's prow I stand, which bears me
Forwards, forwards, o'er the starlit sea.

And a look of passionate desire

O'er the sea and to the stars I send :

"Ye, who from my childhood up have calmed me, Calm me,-ah! compose me to the end.

'Ah, once more! " I cried, "Ye Stars, Ye Waters, heart your mighty charm renew; Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you,

On my

Feel my soul becoming vast like you."

From the intense, clear, star-strewn vault of heaven,
Over the lit sea's unquiet way,

In the rustling night air came the answer :
"Wouldst thou be as these are?-Live as they.

"Unaffrighted by the silence around them,
Undistracted by the sights they see,

These demand not that the things without them
Yield them love, amusement, sympathy.

66

'And with joy the stars perform their shining,
And the sea its long, moon-silvered roll;
For alone they live, nor pine with noting
All the fever of some differing soul.

'Bounded by themselves and unobservant

In what state God's other works may be, In their own tasks all their powers pouring, These attain the mighty life you see.

1 A good instance of the sea's mysterious influence over the human mind.

D

O airborne Voice! long since severely clear,
A cry like thine in my own heart I hear :
"Resolve to be thyself; and know that he
Who finds himself loses his misery."

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

"THE GENTLENESS OF HEAVEN."

THE gentleness of Heaven is on the sea :
Listen the mighty being is awake,
And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder !—everlastingly.

WORDSWORTH.

"THE OCEAN WITH ITS VASTNESS."

THE Ocean with its vastness, its blue-green,

Its ships, its rocks, its caves, its hopes, its fearsIts voice mysterious, which whoso hears

Must think on what will be and what has been.

KEATS.

"LINGER WHERE."

LINGER where the pebble-paven shore,
Under the quiet, faint kisses of the sea,
Trembles and sparkles as with ecstasy,
Possessing and possessed by all that is
Within that calm circumference of bliss.

SHELLEY.

"NOW LAY THINE EAR."

Now lay thine ear against this golden sand,
And thou shalt hear the music of the sea,-
Those hollow tunes it plays against the land.
Is't not a rich and wondrous melody?

I have lain hours, and fancied in its tone
I heard the languages of ages gone.

HOOD.

"THOU REMEMBER'ST."

THOU remember'st,

Since once I stood upon a promontory,
And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back,
Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath,
That the rude sea grew civil at her song,

And certain stars shot madly from their spheres
To hear the sea-maid's music.

SHAKESPEARE.

THE FLOOR OF THE SEA.

THE floor is of sand, like the mountain-drift;
And the pearl-shells spangle the flinty snow;
From coral-rocks the sea-plants lift

Their bows, where tides nor 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 on 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 amidst those bowers of stone,
And is safe when the wrathful spirit of storms
Has made the top of the wave his own.
And when the ship from his fury flies,

Where the myriad voices of ocean roar,
When the wind-god frowns in the murky skies,
And demons 1 are waiting the wreck on shore;

1 Wreckers. Even in the latter part of the life of James Gates Percival, M.D.-an American geologist, scholar and poet, who was born in Berlin, Connecticut, 1795, and died at Hazelgrove, Illinois, 1856-there were professional wreckers on both sides of the Atlantic.

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.
J. G. PERCIVAL.

"THE WORLD BELOW THE BRINE.”

THE world below the brine—

Forests at the bottom of the sea, the branches and leaves,

Sea-lettuce, vast lichens, strange flowers and seeds, the thick tangle, openings, and pink turf;

Different colours, pale grey and green, purple, white, and gold, the play of light through the water; Dumb swimmers there among the rocks, coral, gluten, grass, rushes and the ailment of the swimmers; Sluggish existence grazing there suspended, or slowly crawling close to the bottom;

The sperm-whale at the surface, blowing air and spray, or disporting with his flukes;

The leaden-eyed shark, the walrus, the turtle, the hairy sea-leopard, and the string-ray;

Passions there, wars, pursuits, tribes, sight in those ocean-depths, breathing that thick-breathing air,

as so many do.

WHITMAN.

ITS CREATURES, ITS MYTHS AND ITS TREASURES

O creatures marvellous, past the mind of man
To compass, fathom or create;

Dumb, yet ye tell God's world-evolving plan
From the embryo to a world beyond our date.
ANONYMOUS.

And you, ye wondrous things of beauty and despair,

With whom mankind once peopled Ocean's deeps, Now gone your charms, pearl combs and golden hair

Your romance lost, where no tide ever sweeps.

ANONYMOUS.

Full many a gem of purest ray serene

The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear.

GRAY.