Eastward were sparkling clear, and in the I love-oh how I love!—to ride
The orange sky of evening died away.
Not seldom from the uproar I retired
Into a silent bay, or sportively
Glanced sideway, leaving the tumultuous
throng
To cut across the reflex of a star
That fled, and, flying still before me, gleamed
Upon the glassy plain; and oftentimes,
When we had given our bodies to the wind,
And all the shadowy banks on either side
Came sweeping through the darkness, spin-
ning still
The rapid line of motion, then at once
Have I, reclining back upon my heels,
Stopped short; yet still the solitary cliffs
Wheeled by me, even as if the earth had
rolled
With visible motion her diurnal round.
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train, Feebler and feebler, and I stood and watched Till all was tranquil as a dreamless sleep.
On the fierce foaming, bursting tide,
When every mad wave drowns the moon
Or whistles aloft his tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the sou'-west blasts do blow.
I never was on the dull tame shore
But I loved the great sea more and more,
And backward flew to her billowy breast
Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest;
And a mother she was, and is, to me,
For I was born on the open sea.
The waves were white, and red the morn,
In the noisy hour when I was born;
And the whale it whistled, the porpoise
rolled,
And the dolphins bared their backs of gold;
And never was heard such an outcry wild
As welcomed to life the ocean-child.
F Heaven the grateful liberty would give
That I might choose my method how to live,
For sure no minutes bring us more con
Than those in pleasing useful studies spent.
I'd have a clear and competent estate,
And all those hours propitious Fate should That I might live genteelly, but not great;
In blissful ease and satisfaction spend,
Near some fair town I'd have a private seat,
Built uniform-not little nor too great;
Better if on a rising ground it stood,
As much as I could moderately spend-
A little more, sometimes t'oblige a friend.
Nor should the sons of poverty repine
Too much at fortune: they should taste of
mine;
On this side fields, on that a neighboring And all that objects of true pity were
It should within no other things contain
But what are useful, necessary, plain;
Methinks 'tis nauseous, and I'd ne'er endure,
The needless pomp of gaudy furniture;
A little garden grateful to the eye,
And a cool rivulet run murmuring by,
On whose delicious banks a stately row
Of shady limes or sycamores should grow,
At th' end of which a silent study placed
Should be with all the noblest authors graced-
Horace and Virgil, in whose mighty lines
Immortal wit and solid learning shines;
Sharp Juvenal, and amorous Ovid too,
Who all the turns of love's soft passion
He that with judgment reads his charming lines,
In which strong art with stronger nature
joins,
Must grant his fancy does the best excel,
His thoughts so tender and expressed so
well;
With all those moderns, men of steady sense,
Esteemed for learning and for eloquence.
In some of these, as fancy should advise,
I'd always take my morning exercise;
Should be relieved with what my wants could
Had he whose simple tale these artless lines And the dead foliage flies in many a shapeproclaim.
The rolls of fame I will not now explore, Nor need I here describe in learned lay
Yet such the destiny of all on earthSo flourishes and fades majestic Man:
Shall Nature's voice, to man alone un- All human weal and woe learn thou to make
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