James O. Rockwell

GRAVE of waters gone to rest!

Jewel, dazzling all the main!

Father of the silver crest!

Wandering on the trackless plain,

Sleeping ’mid the wavy roar,

Sailing ’mid the angry storm,

Ploughing ocean’s oozy floor,

Piling to the clouds thy form!

Wandering monument of rain,

Prison’d by the sullen north!

But to melt thy hated chain,

Is it, that thou comest forth?

Wend thee to the sunny south,

To the glassy summer sea,

And the breathings of her mouth

Shall unchain and gladden thee!

Roamer in the hidden path,

’Neath the green and clouded wave!

Trampling, in thy reckless wrath,

On the lost, but cherish’d brave;

Parting love’s death-link’d embrace—

Crushing beauty’s skeleton—

Tell us what the hidden race

With our mourned lost have done!

Floating Sleep! who in the sun

Art an icy coronal;

And, beneath the viewless dun,

Throw’st o’er barks a wavy pall;

Shining Death upon the sea!

Wend thee to the southern main;

Bend to God thy melting knee,

Mingle with the wave again!