A SEA PIECE.
IN THREE SONNETS.
[_]
Scene.—Bridlington Quay, 1824.
I
At nightfall, walking on the cliff-crown'd shore,
Where sea and sky were in each other lost;
Dark ships were scudding through the wild uproar
Whose wrecks ere morn must strew the dreary coast;
I mark'd one well-moor'd vessel tempest-toss'd,
Sails reef'd, helm lash'd, a dreadful siege she bore,
Her deck by billow after billow cross'd,
While every moment she might be no more:
Yet firmly anchor'd on the nether sand,
Like a chain'd Lion ramping at his foes,
Forward and rearward still she plunged and rose,
Till broke her cable;—then she fled to land,
With all the waves in chase; throes following throes;
She 'scaped,—she struck,—she stood upon the strand.
II
The morn was beautiful, the storm gone by;
Three days had pass'd; I saw the peaceful main,
One molten mirror, one illumined plane,
Clear as the blue, sublime, o'erarching sky;
On shore that lonely vessel caught mine eye,
Her bow was seaward, all equipt her train,
Yet to the sun she spread her wings in vain,
Like a caged Eagle, impotent to fly;
There fix'd as if for ever to abide;
Far down the beach had roll'd the low neap-tide,
Whose mingling murmur faintly lull'd the ear:
“Is this,” methought, “is this the doom of pride,
Check'd in the onset of thy brave career,
Ingloriously to rot by piecemeal here?”
III
Spring-tides return'd, and Fortune smiled; the bay
Received the rushing ocean to its breast;
While waves on waves innumerably prest,
Seem'd, with the prancing of their proud array,
Sea-horses, flash'd with foam, and snorting spray;
Their power and thunder broke that vessel's rest;
Slowly, with new expanding life possest,
To her own element she glid away;
Buoyant and bounding like the polar Whale,
That takes his pastime; every joyful sail
Was to the freedom of the wind unfurl'd,
While right and left the parted surges curl'd:
—Go, gallant Bark! with such a tide and gale,
I'll pledge thee to a voyage round the world.
