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النشر الإلكتروني

Serene and mild the untried light
May have its dawning;

And, as in Summer's northern light

The evening and the dawn unite,

The sunset hues of Time blend with the soul's new morning.

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Breaks on the rocks which, stern and grey,

Beneath like fallen Titans lay,

Or murmurs hoarse and strong through mossy cleft and

cave.

What heed I of the dusty land
And noisy town?

I see the mighty deep expand

From its white line of glimmering sand

To where the blue of heaven on bluer waves shuts down!

In listless quietude of mind,

I yield to all

The change of cloud and wave and wind,

And passive on the flood reclined,

I wander with the waves, and with them rise and fall.

But look, thou dreamer!

In shadow lie;

wave and shore

The night-wind warns me back once more

To where my native hill-tops o'er

Bends like an arch of fire the glowing sunset sky!

So then, beach, bluff, and wave, farewell!
I bear with me

No token stone nor glittering shell,

But long and oft shall Memory tell

Of this brief thoughtful hour of musing by the sea.

J. G. WHITtier.

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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 where it sometime fell, When last the winds of heaven were unbound. Oh, ye who have your eyeballs 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!

KEATS.

APOSTROPHE TO THE OCEAN.

ROLL on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin - his control

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Stops with the shore;-upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths,

thy fields

Are not a spoil for him,-thou dost arise

And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,

Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,

And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray
And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,

And dashest him again to earth :-there let him lay.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make

Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war:
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,
They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar
Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save theeAssyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts:—not so thou, Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play— Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure browSuch as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

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 wanton'd with thy breakers- they to me

Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror-'t was a pleasing fear,
For I was as it were a child of thee,

And trusted to thy billows far and near,

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upon thy mane as I do here.

BYRON.

THE Ocean looketh up to heaven,
As 't were a living thing;
The homage of its waves is given,
In ceaseless worshipping.

They kneel upon the sloping sand
As bends the human knee,
A beautiful and tireless band,
The priesthood of the sea.

The sky is as a temple's arch,
The blue and wavy air
Is glorious with the spirit-march
Of messengers at prayer.

J. G. WHITTIER.

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