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he ocean should be sad. I am myself reflective. When I think Of all this wallowing beast, the Sea, has sucked Between his sharp, thin lips, the wedgy waves, What heaps of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls; What piles of shekels, talents, ducats, crowns, What bales of Tyrian mantles, Indian shawls, Of laces that have blanked the weavers' eyes, Of silken tissues, wrought by worm and man, The half-starved workman, and the well-fed worm; What marbles, bronzes, pictures, parchments, books; What many-lobuled, thought-engendering brains; Lie with the gaping sea-shells in his maw,-- I, too, am silent; for all language seems A mockery, and the speech of man is vain. O mariner, we look upon the waves And they rebuke our babbling. "Peace!" they say,-- "Mortal, be still!" My noisy tongue is hushed, And with my trembling finger on my lips My soul exclaims in ecstasy-- MAN AT WHEEL. Belay! CABIN PASSENGER. Ah yes! "Delay,"--it calls, "nor haste to break The charm of stillness with an idle word!" O mariner, I love thee, for thy thought Strides even with my own, nay, flies before. Thou art a brother to the wind and wave; Have they not music for thine ear as mine, When the wild tempest makes thy ship his lyre, Smiting a cavernous basso from the shrouds And climbing up his gamut through the stays, Through buntlines, bowlines, ratlines, till it shrills An alto keener than the locust sings, And all the great Aeolian orchestra Storms out its mad sonata in the gale? Is not the scene a wondrous and-- MAN AT WHEEL. A vast! CABIN PASSENGER. Ah yes, a vast, a vast and wondrous scene! I see thy soul is open as the day That holds the sunshine in its azure bowl To all the solemn glories of the deep. Tell me, O mariner, dost thou never feel The grandeur of thine office,--to control The keel that cuts the ocean like a knife And leaves a wake behind it like a seam In the great shining garment of the world? MAN AT WHEEL. Belay y'r jaw, y' swab! y' hoss-marine! (To the Captain.) Ay, ay, Sir! Stiddy, Sir! Sou'wes' b' sou'! November 10, 1864. CHANSON WITHOUT MUSIC BY THE PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF DEAD AND LIVE LANGUAGES PHI BETA KAPPA.--CAMBRIDGE, 1867 You bid me sing,--can I forget The classic ode of days gone by,-- How belle Fifine and jeune Lisette Exclaimed, "Anacreon, geron ei"? "Regardez done," those ladies said,-- "You're getting bald and wrinkled too When summer's roses all ar
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