THE SEA

BY BRYAN WALLER PROCTER

The sea! the sea! the open sea!

The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
Without a mark, without a bound,

It runneth the earth's wide regions round!
It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies;
Or like a cradled creature lies.

I'm on the sea! I'm on the sea!

I am where I would ever be;

With the blue above, and the blue below,
And silence whereso'er I go;

If a storm should come and awake the deep,
What matter? I shall ride and sleep.

I love, oh, how I love to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,
When every mad wave drowns the moon,
Or whistles aloft his tempest tune,
And tells how goeth the world below,
And why the sou'west blasts do blow.

I never was on the dull, tame shore,
But I loved the great sea more and more,
And backward flew to her billowy breast,
Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest;
And a mother she was, and is, to me;
For I was born on the open sea!

The waves were white, and red the morn,

In the noisy hour when I was born;

And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled,
And the dolphins bared their backs of gold;
And never was heard such an outcry wild
As welcomed to life the ocean child!

I've lived since then, in calm and strife,
Full fifty summers, a sailor's life,

With wealth to spend and a power to range,
But never have sought nor sighed for change;
And Death, whenever he comes to me,

Shall come on the wild, unbounded sea!

OH, MAY I JOIN THE CHOIR INVISIBLE

BY GEORGE ELIOT

Oh, may I join the choir invisible

Of those immortal dead who live again

In minds made better by their presence: live

In pulses stirr'd to generosity,

In deeds of daring rectitude, in scorn

For miserable aims that end with self,

In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge man's search To vaster issues.

So to live is heaven:

To make undying music in the world,

Breathing as beauteous order that controls

With growing sway that growing life of man.

So we inherit that sweet purity

For which we struggled, fail'd, and agonized
With widening retrospect that bred despair.
Rebellious flesh that would not be subdued,
A vicious parent shaming still its child,—
Poor anxious penitence,—is quick dissolved;
Its discords, quench'd by meeting harmonies,
Die in the large and charitable air;
And all our rarer, better, truer self,

That sobb'd, religiously in yearning song,
That watch'd to ease the burden of the world,
Laboriously tracing what must be,

And what may yet be better,-saw within
A worthier image for the sanctuary,
And shaped it forth before the multitude,
Divinely human, raising worship so

To higher reverence more mix'd with love,—
That better self shall live till human time
Shall fold its eyelids, and the human sky
Be gather'd like a scroll within the tomb
Unread forever.

This is life to me,

Which martyr'd men have made more glorious
For us who strive to follow. May I reach

That purest heaven; be to other souls
The cup of strength in some great agony,
Enkindle generous ardor; feed pure love;
Beget the smiles that have no cruelty;
Be the sweet presence of a god diffused,
And in diffusion ever more intense!
So shall I join the choir invisible

Whose music is the gladness of the world.

SELF-DEPENDENCE 1

BY MATTHEW ARNOLD

Weary of myself, and sick of asking

What I am, and what I ought to be,

At this vessel's prow I stand, which bears me
Forward, forward, o'er the starlit sea.

And a look of passionate desire

O'er the sea and to the stars I send;
"Ye who from childhood up have calm'd me,
Calm me, ah, compose me to the end!

"Ah, once more," I cried, "ye stars, ye waters, On my heart your mighty charm renew;

Still, still let me, as I gaze upon you,

Feel my soul becoming vast like you!"

From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of heaven,
Over the lit sea's unquiet way,

In the rustling night air came the answer—
"Wouldst thou be as these are? Live as they.

"Unaffrighted by the silence round them,
Undistracted by the sights they see,

These demand not that the things without them,
Yield them love, amusement, sympathy.

“And with joy the stars perform their shining, And the sea its long moon-silver'd roll;

1 1By permission of The Macmillan Co.

For self-poised they live, nor pine with noting All the fever of some differing soul.

"Bounded by themselves, and unregardful
In what state God's other works may be,
In their own tasks all their powers pouring,
These attain the mighty life we see.'

O air-born voice! long since, severely clear,
A cry like thine in mine own heart I hear:
"Resolve to be thyself; and know that he
Who loses himself loses his misery!"

THINGS THAT NEVER DIE

BY CHARLES DICKENS

The pure, the bright, the beautiful,
That stirred our hearts in youth,
The impulses to wordless prayer,
The dreams of love and truth;
The longing after something lost,
The spirit's yearning cry,
The strivings after better hopes-
These things can never die.

The timid hand stretched forth to aid

A brother in his need,

A kindly word in grief's dark hour

That proves a friend indeed;