The wedgelike cleaving of the closing deep!
A feeling full of hardihood and power
With which we court the waters that devour.
Oh! ’tis a feeling great, sublime, supreme,
Like the extatic influence of a dream,
To speed one’s way thus o’er the sliding plain;
And make a kindred being with the main.
By Chaos! this is gallant sport;
A league at every breath;
Methinks if I ever have to die,
I’ll ride this rate to death.
Away, away upon the whitening tide,
Like lover hastening to embrace his bride,
We hurry faster than the foam we ride.
Dashing aside the waves which round us cling,
With strength like that which lifts an eagle’s wing
Where the stars dazzle and the angels sing.
We scatter the spray,
And break through the billows,
As the wind makes way
Through the leaves of willows!
In vain they urge their armies to the fight:
Their surge-crests crumble ’neath our stroke of might.
We meet and fear not; mount—now rise, now fall—
And dare, with full-nerved arm, the rage of all.
Through anger-swollen wave or sparkling spray,
Nothing it recks; we hold our perilous way
Right onward! till we feel the whirling brain
Ring with the maddening music of the main;
Till the fixed eyeball strives and strains to ken,
Yet loathes to see the shore and haunts of men;
And the blood, half starting through each ridgy vein,
In the unwieldy hand sets black with pain.
Then let the tempest cloud on cloud come spread,
And tear the stormy terrors of his head;
Let the wild sea-bird wheel around my brow,
And shriek—and swoop—and flap her wing as now!
It gladdens! on! ye boisterous billows, roll!
And keep my body; ye have ta’en my soul.
Thou element! the type which God hath given,
For eyes and hearts too earthy, of His Heaven!
Were Heaven a mockery, I would never mourn
While o’er thy bosom I might still be borne;
While yet to me the power and joy was given
To fling my breast on thine, and mingle earth with Heaven.
See yonder! now we quit the main;
For here’s the Cape, here’s land again—
And scour we must o’er Afric’s plain.
Away, away! on either hand
Nor town nor tower,
Nor shade nor shower—
Nothing but sun and sand.
See, there they are! I knew, right soon,
We would light on the mountains of the moon.
Over them! over, nought forbids!
Yonder the Nile and the Pyramids?
Hurrah! by my soul!
At every bound
I see, I feel
The earth rash round.
I see the mountains slide away—
That side night and this side day.
Shall we go to America!
Why, have we time?
Oh, plenty;
Be there, too, ere we reckon twenty.
Another run, another bound!
And we shall leave this lion ground.
The sea again! the swift bright sea!
Hold hard, and follow me!
Well, now we have travelled upon the waves,
Wilt travel a time beneath?
And visit the sea-born in their caves;
And look on the rainbow-tinted wreath
Of weeds, beset with pearls, wherewith
The mermaid binds her long green hair,
Or rouse the sea-snake from his lair?
Ay, ay! down let us dive!
Look up! we lack not stars;
And every star thou seest’s alive:
A little globe of life—light—love,
Whose every atom is a living being;
Each the other’s bosom seeing,
Each enlightening the other.
Oh! how unlike the world above,
Where each doth mainly, vainly strive
To dim or to outshine his brother!
Come on! come on!
Are those bright spars,
Or eyes of things which ne’er forgive,
That seem to play on us, and glare
With rage that we so far should dare
To search the hidden deeps,
Where tide, the moonslave, sleeps?
Where the wind breathes not, and the wave
Walks softly as above a grave;—
Where coral worms, in countless nations,
Build rocks up from the sea’s foundations;—
Where the islands strike their roots
Far from the old mainland;
And spring like desert-fruits,
Shook off by God’s strong hand,
Up from their bed of sand.
Look, listen! there is music in the cave,
Where ocean sleeps, and brightness in the wave
The sea-bird makes its pillow, and the star,
Last born of Heaven, its azure mirror;—far
And wide, the pale, fine, fire of ocean flows,
Softly sublime like lightnings in repose—
Till roused, anon, afar its flaming spray it throws.
There! now we stand
On the world’s-end-land!
Over the hills
Away we go!
Through fire, and snow,
And rivers, whereto
All others are rills.
Through the lands of silver,
The lands of gold;
Through lands untrodden,
And lands untold.
By strait and bay
We must away;
Through swamp, and plain,
And hurricane;
And that dark cloud of slaves
Which yet may rise;—
Though nought shall blot the bannered stars
From Freedom’s skies.
America! half-brother of the world!
With something good and bad of every land;
Greater than thee hare lost their seat—
Greater searce none can stand.
Thy flag now flouts the skies,
The highest under Heaven;
Save the red cross, whereto are given
All victories.
Our horses snort and snuff the sea,
And pant for where we ought to be.
Well, here we are! and as we flew in,
I said, let Darkness follow Ruin!
’Twas right. Spur on! Come, Darkness, come!
Think of thy well-strown stall!
For me, I care not what’s to come,
Nor for the fate by which I fall;
But I would that I were Ocean’s son,
The solitary brave,
Like yon sea-snake, to climb upon
The crest of the bounding wave.
Oh! happy, if at last I lie
Within some pearled and coral cave;
While over head the booming surge
And moaning billow shall chaunt my dirge;
And the storm-blast, as it sweepeth by,
Shall, answering, howl to the mermaid’s sigh,
And the nightwind’s mournful minstrelsy,
Their requiem over my grave.
Through morn and midnight, sunset and high noon,
One hour hath ta’en us;—o’er all land and sea,
O’er opening earthquake and iceberg, have we
Swept in swift safety. ’Twill be over, soon.
Behold the common, narrow sea,
Which, like a strong man’s arm,
Keeps back two foes whose lips are white,
Whose hearts with rage are warm.
England! my country, great and free!
Heart of the world, I leap to thee!
How shall my country fight
When her foes rise against her,
But with thine arm, O Sea!
The arm which thou lent’st her?
Where shall my country be buried
When she shall die?
Earth is too scant for her grave:
Where shall she lie?
She hath brethren more than a hundred,
And they all want room;
They may die and
