1

YPE of the Infinite, I look away

Over thy billows, and I cannot stay

My thought upon a resting-place, or make
A shore beyond my vision, where they break;
But on my spirit stretches, till 'tis pain

To think; then rests, then puts forth again.
Thou hold'st me by a spell; and on thy beach
I feel all soul; and thoughts unmeasured reach
Far back beyond all date. And, oh! how old
Thou art to me. For countless years thou hast rolled :

96

THE MIDNIGHT OCEAN.

Before an ear did hear thee, thou did'st mourn,
Prophet of sorrows, o'er a race unborn,

Waiting, thou mighty minister of death,

Lonely thy work, ere man had drawn his breath.

At last thou did'st it well! the dread command
Came, and thou swept'st to death the breathing land ;
And then once more, unto the silent heaven

Thy lone and melancholy voice was given.

DANA.

THE MIDNIGHT OCEAN.

T is the midnight hour: the beauteous sea,

Calm as the cloudless heaven, the heaven discloses,

While many a sparkling star, in quiet glee,

Far down within the watery sky reposes.

As if the ocean's heart were stirred

With inward life, a sound is heard,

Like that of dreamer, murmuring in his sleep;

'Tis partly the billow, and partly the air,

That lies like a garment floating fair

Above the happy deep.

The sea, I ween, cannot be fanned

By evening freshness from the land,

For the land it is far

away.

But God hath willed that the sky-born breeze,

In the centre of the loneliest seas,

Should ever sport and play.

The mighty moon, she sits above,

Encircled with a zone of love,