"The OCEAN"

by Rosalind Amelia Young (1898)

Here I sit within the sounding of thy billows, mighty Sea,
And my thoughts I fain would utter, as like dreams they come to me.
Shoreward are thy waves advancing, one by one they roll along,
And far up the rocky caverns comes the echo of their song,
Dashing, breaking, sending upward all their sparkling feathery spray,
While beyond the far horizon still thy restless billows play.

I have seen thee often reposing, with the hush upon thy face,
As thou wert in deepest slumber, full of calm majestic grace,
Then a change would swift pass o'er thee, and in anger thou woulds't frown,
Boiling, roaring, tossing madly, bearing all before thee down.
Grand and awful in thy anger, I have stood and gazed on thee,
Thinking, praying for the many who were in peril on the sea.

Thou dividest us from loved ones who are scattered far away,
And from whom we hear no message through each swift revolving day.
Still I love thee, mighty ocean - love thy music, restless deep -
Falling soft in rippling murmurs, as if lulling care to sleep.
Like an azure-coloured mantle spreads thy strong, resistless tide.
Ever moving, ever beating, against the stern rocks' rugged side.

Deeper than the blue of heaven, is thy matchless blue, O Sea.
As I gaze, I scarce can picture that thou canst most cruel be,
But I know, within my bosom, in thy unseen depth beneath
Lie the bones of untold thousands, sleeping their long sleep of death.
What a record might be written of what thou hast seen, O Deep:
Of the brave who once fought on thee, and who in thy bosom sleep;

Of the ships that stood in battle, fearing neither wind nor tide,
While the awful roar of cannon burst from thee on every side.
Now, alas, where are these armies, where the ships that stood arrayed
In their daring, gallant beauty, armed for war, of naught afraid?
Broken, sunken, burnt and scattered, while the bones of friend and foe
Lie, all mingling and forgotten, in thy cold depths below.

And, sometimes, when lashed in fury by the raging of the wind,
Those who sail the mighty waters, all their loved ones left behind,
Meet their doom with quiet courage, battling with the treacherous wave,
With no voice or hand to save them, sink they to a watery grave.
Oh! how many hopes lie buried, buried in thy bosom vast,
Nor shall any from thee waken till earth's trials all are past.
Till the Sea her dead deliver, and from every land and shore
Shall ascend the proclamation that "The Sea shall be no more."