Token of all brave captains and all intrepid sailors and mates, And all that went down doing their duty,

Reminiscent of them, twined from all intrepid captains young or old,

A pennant universal, subtly waving all time, o'er all brave

sailors,

All seas, all ships.

Walt Whitman [1819-1892]

STANZAS

From The Triumph of Time"

I WILL go back to the great sweet mother,—
Mother and lover of men, the Sea.

I will go down to her, I and none other,

Close with her, kiss her, and mix her with me;
Cling to her, strive with her, hold her fast;
O fair white mother, in days long past
Born without sister, born without brother,
Set free my soul as thy soul is free.

O fair green-girdled mother of mine,

Sea, that art clothed with the sun and the rain,
Thy sweet hard kisses are strong like wine,

Thy large embraces are keen like pain.
Save me and hide me with all thy waves,
Find me one grave of thy thousand graves,
Those pure cold populous graves of thine,
Wrought without hand in a world without stain.

I shall sleep, and move with the moving ships,
Change as the winds change, veer in the tide;
My lips will feast on the foam of thy lips,

I shall rise with thy rising, with thee subside;
Sleep, and not know if she be, if she were,
Filled full with life to the eyes and hair.
As a rose is fulfilled to the rose-leaf tips

With splendid summer and perfume and pride.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,

Calm or convulsed,-in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving;-boundless, endless, and sublime,-
The image of Eternity, the throne

Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime

The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward. From a boy
I wantoned with thy breakers,—they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror, 'twas a pleasing fear;
For I was as it were a child of thee,

And trusted to thy billows far and near,

And laid my hand upon thy mane, as I do here. George Gordon Byron [1788-1824]

ON THE SEA

It keeps eternal whisperings around

Desolate shores, and with its mighty swell Gluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spell Of Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound. Often 'tis in such gentle temper found,

That scarcely will the very smallest shell

Be moved for days from whence it sometime fell, When last the winds of heaven were unbound. Oh ye! who have your eye-balls vexed and tired, Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea;

Oh ye! whose ears are dinned with uproar rude, Or fed too much with cloying melody,

Sit ye near some old cavern's mouth, and brood Until ye start, as if the sea-nymphs quired!

John Keats [1795-1821]

A Song of Desire

1589

"WITH SHIPS THE SEA WAS SPRINKLED"

WITH Ships the sea was sprinkled far and nigh,
Like stars in heaven, and joyously it showed;
Some lying fast at anchor in the road,

Some veering up and down, one knew not why.
A goodly vessel did I then espy

Come like a giant from a haven broad;
And lustily along the bay she strode,
Her tackling rich, and of apparel high.

This ship was naught to me, nor I to her,
Yet I pursued her with a lover's look;

This ship to all the rest did I prefer:

When will she turn, and whither? She will brook
No tarrying; where she comes the winds must stir:
On went she, and due north her journey took.
William Wordsworth (1770-1850]

A SONG OF DESIRE

THOU dreamer with the million moods,

Of restless heart like me,

Lay thy white hands against my breast
And cool its pain, O Sea!

O wanderer of the unseen paths,
Restless of heart as I,

Blow hither, from thy caves of blue,
Wind of the healing sky!

O treader of the fiery way,

With passionate heart like mine,
Hold to my lips thy healthful cup
Brimmed with its blood-red wine!

O countless watchers of the night,
Of sleepless heart like me,
Pour your white beauty in my soul,
Till I grow calm as ye!

O sea, O sun, O' wind and stars,
(O hungry heart that longs!)

Feed my starved lips with life, with love,
And touch my tongue with songs!

Frederic Lawrence Knowles [1869-1905]

THE PINES AND THE SEA

BEYOND the low marsh-meadows and the beach,
Seen through the hoary trunks of windy pines,
The long blue level of the ocean shines.
The distant surf, with hoarse, complaining speech,
Out from its sandy barrier seems to reach;
And while the sun behind the woods declines,
The moaning sea with sighing boughs combines,

And waves and pines make answer, each to each.

O melancholy soul, whom far and near,

In life, faith, hope, the same sad undertone

Pursues from thought to thought! thou needs must hear

An old refrain, too much, too long thine own:

'Tis thy mortality infects thine ear;

The mournful strain was in thyself alone.

Christopher Pearse Cranch [1813-1892]

SEA FEVER

I MUST go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;

And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,

And a gray mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.

I must go down to the scas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-
gulls crying.

Hastings Mill

1591

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gipsy life, To the gull's way and the whale's way where the wind's like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover, And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's

over.

John Masefield [1874

HASTINGS MILL

As I went down by Hastings Mill I lingered in my going To smell the smell of piled-up deals and feel the salt wind blowing,

To hear the cables fret and creak and the ropes stir and sigh (Shipmate, my shipmate!) as in days gone by.

As I went down by Hastings Mill I saw a ship there lying,
About her tawny yards the little clouds of sunset flying;
And half I took her for the ghost of one I used to know
(Shipmate, my shipmate!) many years ago.

As I went down by Hastings Mill I saw while I stood dreaming

The flicker of her riding light along the ripples streaming, The bollards where we made her fast and the berth where she did lie

(Shipmate, my shipmate!) in the days gone by.

As I went down by Hastings Mill I heard a fellow singing, Chipping off the deep sea rust above the tide a-swinging, And well I knew the queer old tune and well the song he sung (Shipmate, my shipmate!) when the world was young.

And past the rowdy Union Wharf, and by the still tide sleeping,

To a randy dandy deep sea tune my heart in time was keep

ing,

To the thin far sound of a shadowy watch a-hauling, And the voice of one I knew across the high tide calling (Shipmate, my shipmate!) and the late dusk falling!

Cecily Fox-Smith (1882