How sleep the brave, who sink to rest By all their country's wishes blest! When Spring, with dewy fingers cold, Returns to deck their hallow'd mould, She there shall dress a sweeter sod Than Fancy's feet have ever trod. By fairy hands their knell is rung, By forms unseen their dirge is sung: There Honour comes, a pilgrim gray, To bless the turf that wraps their clay; And Freedom shall awhile repair To dwell a weeping hermit there! --WILLIAM COLLINS. A LIFE ON THE OCEAN WAVE A life on the ocean wave, A home on the rolling deep, Where the scattered waters rave, And the winds their revels keep! Like an eagle caged, I pine On this dull, unchanging shore: Oh! give me the flashing brine, The spray and the tempest's roar! Once more on the deck I stand Of my own swift-gliding craft: Set sail! farewell to the land! The gale follows fair abaft. We shoot through the sparkling foam Like an ocean-bird set free: Like the ocean-bird, our home We'll find far out on the sea. The land is no longer in view, The clouds have begun to frown: But with a stout vessel and crew, We'll say, Let the storm come down! And the song of our heart shall be, While the winds and waters rave, A home on the rolling sea! A life on the ocean wave! --EPES SARGENT. THE EAGLE He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ring'd with the azure world, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls. --ALFRED LORD TENNYSON. PSALM XC Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place In all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. Thou turnest man to destruction; And sayest, Return, ye children of men. For a thousand years in thy sight Are but as yesterday when it is past, And as a watch in the night. Thou carriest them away as with a flood; They are as a sleep: In the morning they are like grass which groweth up. In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; In the evening it is cut down, and withereth. For we are consumed by thine anger, And by thy wrath are we troubled.