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Home  »  The World’s Best Poetry  »  The Two Oceans

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

Poems of Sentiment: VI. Labor and Rest

The Two Oceans

John Sterling (1806–1844)

TWO seas, amid the night,

In the moonshine roll and sparkle—

Now spread in the silver light,

Now sadden, and wail, and darkle.

The one has a billowy motion,

And from land to land it gleams;

The other is sleep’s wide ocean,

And its glimmering waves are dreams.

The one, with murmur and roar,

Bears fleets around coast and islet;

The other, without a shore,

Ne’er knew the track of a pilot.