Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

The crested line of waves upheaving slow,
Like white-plumed squadrons in compact array,
Moving to launch their thunder on the foe,
Each gathering in, with hushed yet ardent will,
Its strength of purpose ere the war-cloud burst,—
And with accumulate energy press on
Their foamy ridges, to dissolve at last,
Like passion's billows, into gushing tears,
Or, with an inarticulate moan, expire.

Wave after wave successively rolls on
And dies along the shore, until more loud
One billow with concentrate force is heard
To swell prophetic, and exultant rears
A lucent form above its pioneers,
And rushes past them to the farthest goal.
Thus our unuttered feelings rise and fall,
And thought will follow thought in equal waves,

Until reflection nerves design to will,
Or sentiment o'er chance emotion reigns,
And all its wayward undulations blends
In one o'erwhelming surge!

In meditation's hour, these waves recede,
And then appear the relics of the soul—
Trophies long cherished, fragments of wrecked hopes,
That, freshened by the dew of memory, gleam
Like a mosaic pavement, whose dim hues
And worn inscriptions suddenly grow clear
Beneath reviving moisture: purple shells
And gay weeds fleck the strand, like garlands torn
By fierce ambition from the rocks of Time,
To drift unheeded down oblivion's main;
And mystic characters indent the sands
Frail as the records that men love to trace,
With the approaching tide to pass away.

Like the sea, too, our being ebbs and flows
From fountains unexplored of inward life
To the world's sterile coast, with restless dash
Chasing its bound; then mournfully sweeps back
To lapse in earnest consciousness again.
For what to thee, O thoughtful soul, imports
The monotone of apathetic days,

Save as the prelude to a higher strain,
In which the symphony of truth shall blend
With love's celestial anthem? Far apart
From the insensate crowd thy real life,
Like the deep under-current of the sea,
Resistless and invisible flows on:
O, for a human ear attuned to catch
Its muffled voice, or gently beaming eyes
To pierce, with keen regard, the playful wave,
And watch its hidden course!

After each tempest, both of mind and sea,
Cometh tranquillity; then rosy hues
Flush the horizon with a glow that warms
The sleeping flood like Hope's blest reverie,
And the low ripples, with their soothing plash,
Lave the gay-tinted pebbles till they shine
Like precious jewels in the sunset fire;
And the wan moon her slender crescent shows,
A diadem benign, serenely high,
While the lulled wave as gently heaves below
As the fair bosom where is treasured up
Our heart's best life, and its pellucid depths
Reflect the firmament as truthful eyes
With crystal softness mirror love's pure gaze.

What pristine vigor braces the glad frame
That dallies with the breakers, meets the surge,
And feels the sportive tossing of the brine!
As in the world's antagonistic sphere
We wrestle and grow calm, the vague unrest
That haunts impulsive natures, yields awhile
To the encircling presence of the sea,
Inviting thought to an excursive range,
And, with its plaintive or impetuous roar,
Stilling the tumult of the eager heart.

The antique genius shaped a noble truth,
In moulding Aphrodite as she stands
Prepared to yield her beauty to the sea:
A winsome coyness, half made up of fear
And half of love, betrays itself in grace:
With eyes averted from the tempting flood,
She grasps her loosened hair, and as the wave
Strikes her pale feet, a swift recoil
Checks the advancing step, and thus she broods,
A lovely image of subdued desire,
Action and thought, that quiver and unite
In exquisite proportion; thus we pause
Upon the brink of glory unachieved,
Or sacrifice resolved—our hearts appalled
By the chill touch and drear infinitude
Of Fate's relentless tide.

Thy breath, majestic sea, was native air,
And thy cool spray, like Nature's baptism, fell
Upon my brow, while thy hoarse summons called
My childhood's fancy into wonder's realm.
Thy boundless azure in youth's landscape shone
Like a vast talisman, that oft awoke
Visions of distant climes, from weary round
Of irksome life to set my spirit free;
And hence whene'er I greet thy face anew,
Familiar tenderness and awe return
At the wild conjuration;—fondest hopes,
And penitential tears and high resolves
Are born of musing by the solemn deep.

Then here, enfranchised by the voice of God,
O, ponder not, with microscopic eye,
What is adjacent, limited and fixed;
But with high faith gaze forth, and let thy thought
With the illimitable scene expand,
Until the bond of circumstance is rent,
And personal griefs are lost in visions wide
Of an eternal future! Far away
Where looms yon sail, that, like a curlew's wing,
Prints the gray sky, are moored enchanted isles
Of unimagined beauty, with soft airs
And luscious fruitage, and unclouded stars;

Where every breeze wafts music, every path
By flowers o'erhung, leads to a home of love,
And every life is glorified with dreams:
And thus beyond thy present destiny,
Beyond the inlet where the waves of Time
Fret at their barren marge, there spreads a sea
More free and tranquil, where the isles of peace
Shall yield thy highest aspiration scope,
And every sympathy response divine.