COMPOSED BY THE SEA-SHORE

What mischief cleaves to unsubdued regret,

How fancy sickens by vague hopes beset;

How baffled projects on the spirit prey,

And fruitless wishes eat the heart away,

The Sailor knows; he best, whose lot is cast

On the relentless sea that holds him fast

On chance dependent, and the fickle star

Of power, through long and melancholy war.

O sad it is, in sight of foreign shores,

Daily to think on old familiar doors,

Hearths loved in childhood, and ancestral floors;

Or, tossed about along a waste of foam,

To ruminate on that delightful home,

Which with the dear Betrothed was to come;

Or came and was and is, yet meets the eye

Never but in the world of memory;

Or in a dream recalled, whose smoothest range

Is crossed by knowledge, or by dread, of change,

And if not so, whose perfect joy makes sleep

A thing too bright for breathing man to keep.

Hail to the virtues which that perilous life

Extracts from Nature's elemental strife;

And welcome glory won in battles fought

As bravely as the foe was keenly sought.

But to each gallant Captain and his crew

A less imperious sympathy is due,

Such as my verse now yields, while moonbeams play

On the mute sea in this unruffled bay;

Such as will promptly flow from every breast,

Where good men, disappointed in the quest

Of wealth and power and honours, long for rest;

Or, having known the splendours of success,

Sigh for the obscurities of happiness.