Oh, what comes flowing over the seaIn the hush of the evening's cool?It is a mermaid singing to meAs she sits in a silver pool.As she sits in a silver pool and singsOf the world I never shall see,Where the dulse-weed clings,And the star-fish ringsThe red anemone;The world which liesWhere human eyesAre never allowed to seeThe gold and gemsAnd fluted stemsOf the crimson coral tree—Is that what she sings to me?She is haunting and holding my heart with a strain,Where joy lies asleep in the shadow of pain;And the world that is under the seaIs spreading its pleasures and treasures to gainThe love that lies dormant in me—The love that I bear for the sea,For the secret and sorrowful sea;Is luring my feet from the gray land againAnd filling my soul with the scent of the main,The sound and the scent of the sea;And the speech of the siren is spoken in vain,For that mermaid is singing to meOf the world that is under the sea;And the love that I bear for the ocean again,For the mournful and mutable sea,Has taken possession of me:My heart is enmeshed in the mystical strainThat mermaid is singing to meOf the world that lies under the sea.Ah, hark again! In a sadder strainShe is singing a song to me—A song of the unseen sea;She is singing of ships whose wrecks have lainFor ages in the sea,In the depths of the sunless sea;And her voice is soft with a thought of the painThat song is giving to me.A thought that I thought forever had lainIn the depths of the soundless seaIs searching my soul in that mermaid's strainAnd bringing a sorrow to meFrom the world that is under the sea.For I have a friend whose bones have lainFor ages in the sea,(For so it seems to me),And her song has opened that wound againAnd brought back a sorrow to me—From the depths of the endless sea.A grief that is grieving my life again,A thought that I thought, forever had lain,And never come back to me,Is searching my soul in that mermaid's strainAnd bringing a sorrow to meFrom the world that lies under the sea.Oh, what comes flowing over the seaIn the hush of the evening's cool?It is a mermaid singing to meAs she sits in a silver pool.TRAFALGAR, 1805.We hailed the morning starAbove the Spanish shore;Our cannon's random roarThen woke black Trafalgar.Where our foesLay in the crescent bayWe watched the fog bank grayMelt silently awayAs the sun uprose.Then rolled the deep alarm—The foeman's call to arm;And swiftly from our vanThere pass'd from man to man,"They will fight."With hearts that beat to chaseWe caught the growing gale,And 'neath a press of sailBore up to take our placeOn the right.Nelson, our admiral then,Greatest of all seamen,We cheered to death againAs he pass'd;'Round toward the landWe tacked and stood about—The hills rang to our shoutAs lifted and blew outHis last commandFrom the mast.Then flash'd our full broadside,Roaring across the tide,As crashing side by sideWe broke their line;Thro' rolling clouds of smokeBurst in our prows of oak;Their tall sides bent and brokeLike pine.As died the stagger'd blastThe sails dropt to the mast;That broadside was their last!One more to clip her wing!Quick away!Tigers our boarders spring,Cutlass to cutlass ring,In the fray.We heard no quarter call:A man stood every Gaul!Useless, their flag must fallThat day.The fight thus well begun,We paused a breathing space;Each soul leapt to a faceAs Nelson in his graceSignaled "Well done!"Staying the tott'ring mastWe rounded to the blast,Grappled the next that pass'd—A huge Spaniard.No room to lift the ports:Black gun to gun retorts—Lip locked to lip,Each man a firmer gripOn his lanyard.To save this pride of SpainA Frenchman joined the fight;Then roaring in our mightWe smote him with our rightTwice, and again."Cease! Cease!" our Captain cries."She liesA silent wreck!"Three times we spared that foe,Yet from her came the blowThat laid our hero lowOn the deck.What more for me to say,Save thro' the fatal frayWe marked the hours that dayWith cheers!Our foes struck one by one;Yet when the fight was doneWe saw the misty sunSet thro' our tears.O England, strong yet free,The crown we bear to thee,Laurels for victory!Weave cypress in the wreath:For he to whom thou gaveThe keeping of the wave,Nelson, the true, the brave,Has struck his flag to death.Oh, men of hero race,In what a fitting placeTo set his conquering star!—Amid the battle's roar,Under the rolling shoreWhere rises wild and hoarCape Trafalgar.WHEN.When western winds are blowing softAcross the Island Sound;When every sail that draws aloftIs swollen true and round;When yellow shores along the leeSlope upward to the sky;When opal bright the land and seaIn changeful contact lie;When idle yachts at anchor swimAbove a phantom shape;When spires of canvas dot the rimWhich curves from cape to cape;When sea-weed strewn the ebbing tidePours eastward to the main;When clumsy coasters side by sideTack in and out again—When such a day is mine to live,What has the world beyond to give?THE FORSAKEN PORT.Thro' all this perfect summer dayThe wind has blown from out the west,And now the sunset fires investWhere looms the mainland far away,The old town right abreast.The red-brown roofs and rugged spiresUplift and pierce the sunset fires,The old town right abreast.The ships rise up, and sail, and sail,Then drop beneath the distant rim—The crimson rim.We watch their topsails float and trail—Like bubbles 'round a goblet's brim,A moment there they rise and dip,Then break against the sky's red lip.Unhailed the ships go sailing byThe old town over there;And yet it seems we hear a cry—A heart-born cryOf anguish and despair,Of hope lost in despair.In speechful grief the old town standsAnd beckons with its outstretched handsAs the ships go sailing by.Long years ago its port was throngedWith many a busy sail,With rustling sail.And many a heart has sighed and longedFor that old town's cheery hail—Has sighed and longed for that old town's welcome hail.Oh, where are they who left thy portIn strength of youth, in pride of love?Side by side with a dark consort,Calm seas below, blue skies above,They tacked and stood across the bar:Only the sea knows where they are—Only the sea!Perhaps at night the phantom ships—Thy lost ships—come sailing in;Their spectre crews with parted lipsThat utter no sound, for the spell of deathTurns even a laugh to a grin.Do they wait, and list for the dinOf the cheers and the bells to welcome them in—For the cheers and the bells to welcome them in?Do their dead hearts know hopes and fears?Do they dream of the wives they've not seen for years?—The wives and the sweethearts who watched them thro' tearsSail away, sail away, when the wind was southAnd the bar was blue at the harbor's mouth,And the gulls flew low like flakes of snow,And the summer wind bore the heave-yo-hoOf the sailors brownInto the town?Are they here, the ones so dear?Alas! the lips that their lips have known,Alas! the hearts that once beat to their ownAre lying up on the hillside there,And the daisies and grasses have overgrownTheir graves for many a year.Yon sentinel pine that watches the gravesWhere their wives and sweethearts are laid to restThe wild winter wind defies and outbraves;Its roots are sunk in some loved one's breast.Are their souls at rest?Sometimes, I think, they must wander down hereTo watch for the ships that never will come.In the silence of night they throng the old pierTo welcome the wanderers home;Their lustreless eyes—Enough of death and ghostly tales!Oh, let the old town keep its vigil there,Watching for those who were!What though the dark ship with us sails—Ah, fools, to freight our hearts with care!To waste our breath in idle hails,To cringe and cry.We live for those who are, not were!—We live to live, not die!AN EARLY MOONSET.Like galleon flying a picaroon,Along the edge the ship-shap'd moonLeadeth a star across the seaTo the cloudy harbor under her lee.With her splendid lading of golden lightShe seems to dread the pirate Night;With puffing sails and fretful oarsShe steereth and speedeth for purple shores.She will anchor to-night beneath the fortWhose grim guns guard the cloudy port,Where sound and safe from picaroonRides many an olden and golden moon.ON THE BRIDGE.Eight bells ring out from the fo'c'sle head;With a cheery good-eve the mate comes forth,The second goes off to his welcome bed,After giving the course as west by north.As I stand with my chin on the dodger's ridgeAnd dreamily eye our plunging craftThere's a rattle of heels on the flying bridgeAnd a gruff report that the watch is aft."All right!" says the mate, with a glance below;"Relieve the wheel and the lookout there!"And then we begin, with our to and fro,The walk and the talk we nightly share.In silence at first—for our pipes are lit—We pace and puff, and we pause and turn,And it's up and down, for she rolls a bitWhen flying light with the sea astern.But there's a key in the hands of smokeThat fits a lock in the lazy brain,And we spring the wards with a quiet jokeAnd rout out a store of yarns again.Our voices ring with a pleasant sound,And now and again it seems to meAs though in the roar that sweeps aroundWe are joined by the social sea.And in that strange way that talk is bred—As a few grains sown bring the wheaty stack—So something afresh the other saidPut the roaming brain on another tack.And we boxed about in an aimless way,With a careless fling from sea to land,And spoke of the world as a young man mayWhen he hasn't the time to understand.We spoke of the land that gave us birth;We spoke of the one that's home to me:Those nations destined to shape the earthTo the single state it is to be—Of tricks we played in our school-boy days;The fun and frolic of being young;How we jollied life in a hundred waysWith gibes that pleased and jests that stung.And of those we loved—for now we knewWith half our life in the dim asternWhich lights were false and which lights were true,And whose was the hand that bid them burn.Of the rough hard life the sailor leads,The pay he gets and the sharks ashore,And what are the laws our shipping needs,And the way things went in days of yore.Of the sailing ship as she yet survives,Of rigs we never shall see again,Of inventions that save our seamen's livesAnd murder the breed of sailor men.We talk of these and of many a boutWhen a crew came aft for a nasty row—When loud comes a cry from the fore look-outOf a light on the starboard bow."All right!" the response. Then we train our eyesOn the western rim thro' the closing night.It's a steamer, sure, by the flash and size—A liner's electric masthead light.She rises fast, and is soon up well,Rushing along 'neath a smoky pall,A mass of lights like some huge hotelAblaze for its annual boarders' ball.As she grows abeam—for we give her space,For twenty knots is a right of way—There's an answering glow on old ocean's faceAnd a glint on the waves in play.And I think, as I watch her speed along,Of the many lives she holds in trust,And ponder what they would do, that throng,If Fate should get in a deadly thrust.A ship like ours or a sunken wreck—A crash in the dark—some plates stove in—A frightened rush for the upper deck,And a clamorous, cowardly din!How some would die as men should die,How some would perish in selfish strife,How some in that hour would dignifyBy a noble close a worthless life.How she whose vigor we oft deride—The woman—would show her courage then,And meet her death at her lover's sideIn a way to shame the best of men.But, Science be praised, it is seldom nowWe lose a ship by a sudden crash,For what with the lights and the whistle's rowWe luckily dodge a general smash.And that ship there, as she breasts the swellAnd ghosts her side with a foamy ridge,Has had many a shave—for logs don't tellAll the tales of a steamer's bridge.In silence we watch her for quite a timeUntil she becomes a smoky blear,Then as ten rings out from the fo'c'sle chimeI go aft to my cheese and my beer.MISSING.A cloudless sky, a sleeping sea,A cold gray reach of shore,A gleam of sail upon the lee—And nothing more.My eyes saw that, my heart saw more:A woman whose quivering lipMoulded this sentence o'er and o'er,"God keep that ship!"God keep that ship! Her prayer, not mine,Goes out across the seaTo where beyond the misty lineA face is turned from me.God keep that ship! Her ship, not mine—Mine never came back to me.MAKING LAND.The fore-royal furled, I pause and I stand,Both feet on the yard, for a look around,With eyes that ache for a sight of the land,For we are homeward bound.Like a bowl of silver the ocean lies,Untouched by the fret of a single sail,And over its edge the billows upriseAnd slide before the gale.I see, close beneath me, the garn's'l bulge,And half of the tops'l swollen and roundSwells out above, where the bunts divulgeThe fores'l's snowy mound.With a fill and a flap the jibs respond,As she rolls a-weather, then rolls a-lee,And her bone as she leaps is thrown beyondThe next o'ertaken sea.And the hull beneath in its foamy ringIs narrowed in by the spread of sail,And the waves as they wash her seem to flingTheir heads above the rail.And I hear the roar of the passing blast,And the hiss and gush of the parted seaIs mixed with the groan of the straining mast,And the parrel's, che, che, che.Of the weather deck where the old man strides,From the break of the poop to the after-rail,I can catch a glimpse, but all besidesIs hid by swelling sail.For the wake abaft is shut behind,Except when she yaws from her helm and throws;Then like a green lane it seems to windAheap with drifted snows.But lo! as I gaze the weather clewOf the topsail lifts to the watch's weight,And the helmsman comes into perfect view,And at his side the mate.As I swing my eyes ahead againFor that one last look ere I drop below,They catch as she lifts a grayish stainAthwart the orange glow.My heart leaps up at the welcome sight,And I grasp the pole with a firmer hand,And shading my eyes from the glancing lightMake sure that it is land.It seems to dance, but I catch it stillAs we lift to the sweep of a longer sea—'Tis the windy top of a far-off hillWhose shape is known to me.Then I send a yell to the rolling deck,And start all hands from their work below;As I point with a rigid arm at the speck—The cry comes back, "Land ho!"And the mate looks up and gives a call,The old man stops in his clock-like walk,The watch lets up on the top-sail fallAnd takes a spell of talk.The skipper goes aft to the binnacle, whereHe shapes his hand on the compass card,And takes with a glance the bearing there,Eying me on the yard.And I stand with my right arm swinging out,With a finger true on the dancing speck,Until on my ears falls the ringing shout:"All right! Lay down on deck!"