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WHERE IS THE SEA?

SONG OF THE GREEK ISLANDER IN EXILE.

[A Greek Islander, being taken to the Vale of Tempe, and called upon to admire its beauty, only replied -The sea-where is it?']

WHERE is the sea?

I languish here

Where is my own blue sea?
With all its barks in fleet career,
And flags, and breezes free.

I miss that voice of waves which first
Awoke my childhood's glee;

The measured chime—the thundering burst

Where is my own blue sea?

Oh! rich your myrtle's breath may rise,

Soft, soft your winds may be;

Yet

my

sick heart within me diesWhere is my own blue sea?

I hear the shepherd's mountain flute

I hear the whispering tree;
The echoes of my soul are mute :
Where is my own blue sea?

MRS. HEMANS.

SALUTATION.

GOD be with thee, gladsome Ocean!
How gladly greet I thee once more!
Ships, and waves, and ceaseless motion,
And men rejoicing on thy shore.

Dissuading spake the mild physician, 'Those briny waves for thee are death!' But my soul fulfilled her mission,

And lo! I breathe untroubled breath!

Fashion's pining sons and daughters Who seek the crowd they seem to fly, Trembling they approach thy waters; And what cares Nature, if they die?

Me a thousand hopes and pleasures,
A thousand recollections bland,
Thoughts sublime and stately measures,
Revisit on thy echoing strand:

Dreams (the soul herself forsaking),
Tearful raptures, boyish mirth;

Silent adorations, making

A blessed shadow of this earth!

O ye hopes, that stir within me,
Health comes with you from above!
God is with me, God is in me!

I cannot die, if Life be Love.

COLERIDGE.

WHITE-CAPT WAVES.

WHITE-CAPT waves far round the Ocean,
Leaping in thanks or leaping in play,
All your bright faces, in happy commotion,
Make glad matins this summer day.

The rosy light through the morning's portals Tinges your crests with an August hue; Calling on us, thought-prisoned mortals, Thus to live in the moment too.

For, graceful creatures, you live by dying,
Save your life, when you fling it away,
Flow through all forms, all form defying,
And in wildest freedom strict rule obey.

Show us your art, O genial daughters

Of solemn Ocean, thus to combine Freedom and force of rolling waters With sharp observance of law divine.

J. F. CLARKE.

SEA-VIEW FROM ST. LEONARD'S.

HAIL to thy face and odors, glorious Sea! 'T were thanklessness in me to bless thee not, Great beauteous Being! in whose breath and smile My heart beats calmer, and my very mind Inhales salubrious thoughts. How welcomer Thy murmurs than the murmurs of the world! Though like the world thou fluctuatest, thy din To me is peace, thy restlessness repose. Ev'n gladly I exchange yon spring-green lanes With all the darling field-flowers in their prime, And gardens haunted by the nightingale's Long trills and gushing ecstacies of song, For these wild headlands and the sea-mew's clang.

With thee beneath my windows, pleasant sea!
I long not to o'erlook earth's fairest glades
And green savannahs: Earth has not a plain
So boundless or so beautiful as thine.

The eagle's vision cannot take it in:

The lightning's wing, too weak to sweep its space, Sinks half-way o'er it like a wearied bird:

It is the mirror of the stars, where all
Their hosts within the concave firmament,
Gay marching to the music of the spheres,
Can see themselves at once.

Nor on the stage

Of rural landscape are there lights and shades
Of more harmonious dance and play than thine.
How vividly this moment brightens forth,
Between gray parallel and leaden breadths,
A belt of hues that stripes thee many a league,
Flush'd like the rainbow, or the ring-dove's neck,
And giving to the glancing sea-bird's wing
The semblance of a meteor.

Mighty sea!

Cameleon-like thou changest, but there's love
In all thy change, and constant sympathy
With yonder sky-thy Mistress; from her brow
Thou tak'st thy moods, and wear'st her colors on
Thy faithful bosom; morning's milky white,
Noon's sapphire, or the saffron glow of eve;
And all thy balmier hours, fair Element!
Have such divine complexion-crisped smiles,
Luxuriant heavings, and sweet whisperings,-
That little is the wonder, Love's own Queen
From thee of old was fabled to have sprung.
Creation's common! which no human power
Can parcel or enclose; the lordliest floods
And cataracts, that the tiny hands of man
Can tame, conduct, or bound, are drops of dew
To thee, that could'st subdue the Earth itself,

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