SONGS OF THE SEA.
Reading edition
"My soul is full of longing For the secret of the sea, And the heart of the great ocean Sends a restless pulse through me."—LONGFELLOW
In the grey light of the morning, ere the sun has lit the sky When the winds rave loud and wildly, to the angry waters How the mighty, foaming billows thunder forth, in ceaseless roar, Songs majestic, wild with anguish, woeful waitings evermore. In the dawn light, in the gloaming, beating, breaking, o'er and o'er, Telling out the ocean stories, to the wide, encircling shore; And I listen, till the legends of the past, a shadowy host, Seem to gather round, and people storied Antrim's rock-bound coast.
Where the grandeur of the Causeway smiles in scorn at Art's weak hand, Seem the wild waves ever singing of the high schemes Nature plann'd, When she hurled the giant columns, by some mighty earthquake shock, Till they stand, huge pillar-wonders, by the paved, mysterious rock; And the dark caves, weird and frowning, echoing the sea's wild strife, Seem to hold some spell unearthly, of the ocean's secret life.
Where th'Atlantic rolls sublimely, lashing round Port Ballintrae, Language cannot paint the grandeur of the waves, in awful play! Beating, breaking, wildly seething, whilst in restless, fitful roar, Deep to far-off deep is calling, answering round from shore to shore. And the spirit of the ocean seems to fill its heaving breast With ten thousand prison'd longings, wailing out in wild unrest.
Softening down to calmer music, round the White Rocks and the caves, With a tender, nameless pathos, softly sing the curling waves To the battlements and turrets, and the old towers, grim and hoary. Where the stern Macquillan chieftains reigned in once unconquered glory. There Dunluce, in lonely grandeur, frowns in wild, and deathless pride, Sentinel of bygone ages, Time-tried warder by the tide.
Grey Dunluce, in concert blending, winds, and waves, and sounding sea, Seem to sing a dirge of sorrow for the glory fled from thee, Rolling onward to the Skerries, wailing far in requiem moan Till they catch the surf's bold thunder round toe rock at Innishone, Where the foam-girt shore re-echoes with the burthen of the song, And the angry dashing billows wide and far the cry prolong.
When the moonlight, pale and faintly, gleams on Malin Head's blue crest, And its silvery pathway shimmers far across the ocean's breast; When the yeasty breakers glisten softly in the shadowy light, When the rocks seem mystic castles, looming grimly thro' the night; Then the solemn songs of Ocean, fraught with precious, new- found lore Bring for Fancy unknown treasure, priceless gems for Thought's great store!
Grand old Ocean! how my spirit longs to catch thy melody Do thine heart's great pulses quicken with a secret life, oh, Sea? Far adown the blue waves, hidden by the hearings of your breast, Is there soul to tune your singing, to its ceaseless, wild unrest? Oh! thou dread and wondrous ocean, tell these mystic songs to me For their cadence, grand and changeful, haunts my path with mystery.