HOW beautiful the chaste
And glorious moonlight glitters on the wave!
Like diamond glancing upward from its cave,
By rushing waters paced!
The home-bound seaman hails
Its ray auspicious, as it gayly flits
Before him on his ocean-path, or sits
Like silver on the sails!
Profusely thrown in showers
The dancing beam with every wave curl dips,
Like sunlight sprinkled on the bearded lips
Of humble meadow-flowers.
On the lone beetling cliff,
Where moonlight streams in all its glory bright,
I see below the fishers, by its light,
Haul beechward their rude skiff:
And high above, the cot
Which they call home, stands in the glad moonlight,
Dear to their hearts and welcome to their sight,
When they are far afloat.
Here, as I linger, rapt,
In the lone presence of the ocean free,
Suspended like a bird above the sea,
My bounding soul is apt
To mingle, as its own,
Among the waters, like a privileged thing;
Or, as a seamew spreads its radiant wing,
On the wild breezes thrown,
To wander far away
Above the breakers, and then strength inhale;
Or float, like one inspired, upon the gale,
And all its might survey.
The grey sea, like grey time,
Rolls onward till it traces its fixed bound,
And then resumes its slow accustomed round,
Fettered like measured rhyme!
The hollow of God's hand
Might hold it; and, though restless in its pride,
It cannot outflow its appointed tide,
Or overrun the land.
When the rude tempest sings,
And waves run high, and harsh the thunder's threats
Assail the ear, the seaman ne'er forgets
The promise moonlight brings:
Amid the lashing foam,
When its soft smile anoints the boiling wave;
It tracks his pathway, prompts his soul to brave
Whatever perils come.
Homeward his vessel drifts,
With beauty fair behind it and before;
Hope leads it onward to the wished-for shore,
And all the heart uplifts.
Like mellow light of years,
Long since evanished, on the memory,
The moonlight falls upon the bounding sea,
And the whole present cheers!