The shower of moonlight falls as still and clear Upon this desert main As where sweet flowers some pastoral garden cheer With fragrance after rain:
The wild winds rustle in piping shrouds, As in the quivering trees: Like summer fields, beneath the shadowy clouds The yielding waters darken in the breeze.
Thou too art here with thy soft inland tones, Mother of our new birth; The lonely ocean learns thy orisons, And loves thy sacred mirth:
When storms are high, or when the fires of war Come lightening round our course, Thou breath'st a note like music from afar, Tempering rude hearts with calm angelic force.
Far, far away, the homesick seaman's hoard, Thy fragrant tokens live, Like flower-leaves in a previous volume stored, To solace and relieve
Some heart too weary of the restless world; Or like thy Sabbath Cross, That o'er this brightening billow streams unfurled, Whatever gale the labouring vessel toss.
Oh, kindly soothing in high Victory's hour, Or when a comrade dies, In whose sweet presence Sorrow dares not lower, Nor Expectation rise
Too high for earth; what mother's heart could spare To the cold cheerless deep Her flower and hope? but Thou art with him there, Pledge of the untired arm and eye that cannot sleep:
The eye that watches o'er wild Ocean's dead, Each in his coral cave, Fondly as if the green turf wrapt his head Fast by his father's grave, -
One moment, and the seeds of life shall spring Out of the waste abyss, And happy warriors triumph with their King In worlds without a sea, unchanging orbs of bliss.
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