Not for me, that hear aghast, Which, in youth, went down with me! And if storms should come, and rain Pour in torrents down the sky What care I? What cares any one in pain? Are not tears still wrung from me? Woe is me! and all in vain ; In the sea! But they would be over then, By God's ocean it must sleep! Up and down the barren beaches; In along the curving reaches; Out along the horns of sand; Over the ledges of the rocks, Where the surges comb their locks, And their wreathed buds remain, Not to bloom again — Many a league and hour I'd stray, The climbing sun, in light betrayed, The tossing foam, the wandering plain The sea-mew darting everywhere, In dreams I do behold them all! Or the sorrow, and despair, The restless ocean in my desolated mind! R. H. STODDARD. THEKLA'S LAMENT. THE night-clouds hurry, the forests moan, My heart is deadened, the world is void, Thou Holy One! summon thy child to Thee— From the German of SCHILLER. I STRETCH my arms out to the heaving sea; Ah! vain the promise of these stately tides; ANONYMOUS. INVOCATION. HEAR, Sweet spirit, hear the spell And at evening evermore, Shall the chanters, sad and saintly, Miserere Domine! Hark! the cadence dies away The boatman rest their oars and say Miserere Domine ! COLERIDGE. BREAK, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me O well for the fisherman's boy, That he shouts with his sister at play! O well for the sailor lad, That he sings in his boat on the bay! And the stately ships go on To their haven under the hill; But O for the touch of a vanish'd hand, And the sound of a voice that is still! Break, break, break, At the foot of thy crags, O sea! But the tender grace of a day that is dead Will never come back to me. A. TENNYSON. |