A Life on the Ocean Wave

Epes Sargent

Epes Sargent was born at Gloucester, Mass., in 1813, and died in Boston in 1880. He was an editor, novelist, dramatist, biographer, and poet. He was, during his life, connected with the New York Mirror and the Boston Transcript. The following poem is from his volume of published poems, Songs of the Sea.

This selection, on account of the leaps of the imagination, is probably better suited to reading from the book than to recitation. Considerable force can be used on the words "Set sail," and the few following words, and also on "Let the storm come down." The reader must place himself as fully as possible in the situa tions the poet indicates-first, on the shore; second, on the vessel; and third, out of sight of land in a raging storm. The tone is strong and heroic, with joy running high in the second and third

stanzas.

A LIFE on the ocean wave,

A home on the rolling deep,
Where the scattered waters rave,
And the winds their revel keep!
Like an eagle caged, I pine

On this dull, unchanging shore:
Oh, give me the flashing brine,

The spray and the tempest's roar!

Once more on the deck I stand

Of my own swift-gliding craft:
Set sail! farewell the land!

The gale follows fair abaft.

We shoot through the sparkling foam
Like an ocean bird set free;—
Like the ocean bird, our home
We'll find far out on the sea.

The land is no longer in view,

The clouds have begun to frown;

But with a stout vessel and crew,

We'll say, Let the storm come down!
And the song of our hearts shall be,
While the winds and the waters rave,
A home on the rolling sea!

A life on the ocean wave!

Apostrophe to the Ocean

George Gordon Byron

Lord Byron was born in London, in the year 1788. He suffered a slight lameness of one foot from a childhood illness. The death of a great-uncle brought him title and estates in 1798. He was a good student of the classics and read widely in his youth. During his student life at Trinity College he published "Juvenile Poems." In 1809 he took his seat in the House of Lords. In the same year he started on his travels over the continent and wrote the first part of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage," which brought him "fame overnight" at the age of twenty-four. His irregular life caused the separation from his wife and his leaving England once more to accompany his friend Shelley. He died while in the midst of giving assistance to the Greeks in their fight for liberation, in the year 1818. Of his poetical works, "Don Juan," "The Corsair," and "The Giaour" are noteworthy, and of his dramatic works, "Manfred" is considered the best.

In this majestic poem strive to lay hold upon the omnipotence and eternity of the ocean. The voice will naturally take on depth and grandeur, but be careful not to "roar" as the sea. Rather, secure the effects desired by a spiritual expansion. Note the change to a tone of affection in the last stanza.

THERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar.
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel

What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin, his control

Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,

When for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths, with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths, thy fields

Are not a spoil for him,-thou dost arise

And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields

For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray, And howling to his Gods, where haply lies His pretty hope in some poor port nearby, And dash'st him again to earth:-there let him lie.

The armaments which thunder-strike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals;
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;—

These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into the nest of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee;
Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage-what are they?
Thy waters wasted them while they were free,
And many a tyrant since; their shores obey
The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay
Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou,
Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play;
Time writes no wrinkle on thy azure brow;
Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests; in all time.

Calm or convulsed; in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime,

Dark-heaving; boundless, endless, and sublime;— The image of Eternity, the throne

Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless,

alone.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wanton'd with thy breakers-they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror-'twas a pleasing fear,
For I was as it were a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near,

And laid my hand upon thy mane—as I do here.

The Chambered Nautilus

Oliver Wendell Holmes

Oliver Wendell Holmes was born in Boston, in 1809. He was a versatile man and distinguished himself in the medical profession, in the literary field, and in social life. His literary fame began with the publication of "Old Ironsides" while he was still a college student. In 1847 he was appointed professor of anatomy at Harvard, and held that position until 1888. His first important literary achievement was "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," published in The Atlantic Monthly, in 1857. This was followed by "The Poet_at the Breakfast Table," and "The Professor at the Breakfast Table." The dry wit and odd personality of Holmes contributed to his great success in literature as well as in social life. He also wrote three novels, the most important of which is "Elsie Venner." "Songs in Many Keys," "The Iron Gate," and "Before the Curfew," are a few of his many volumes of poetry. He died in Boston, in 1894.

This poem is in the form of a direct address to the shell of a chambered nautilus, and is therefore best read from the book. The reader should ask the audience to imagine the poet sitting in contemplation of this wondrously beautiful shell. In the last stanza the poet may be imagined to lift his head in reverie or contempla. tion, as he thinks of the spiritual lesson involved. If the reader can get the audience to see the poet clearly, almost direct speaking may be used. but suggestive glances to the side may be used with caution. Although the whole tone of the poem is direct, do not forget to develop its wonderful music to the highest degree consistent with perfect understanding.

THIS is the ship of pearl, which poets feign,
Sails the unshadowed main,-

The venturous bark that flings

On the sweet summer wind its purpled wings
In gulfs enchanted, where the siren sings,

And coral reefs lie bare;

Where the cold sea-maids rise to sun their streaming hair.

Its webs of living gauze no more unfurl,

Wrecked is the ship of pearl!