The sea rolls lazily, and whist. As the motions of the whirling mist; A pantomime of air and sea, That hath a solemn witchery, Which puzzles the cock, who has the right If any one has, to know day-light; But tired at last, he gives up, dumb With wondering when the morn will come; And after straining his lungs all day, Kicks up a row in his family. The porpoise out on the fishing ground With a running start, comes upward-bound, Then skimming along the ocean's brim, And just in tone with its solemn hymn, He snorts and blows, with a careless fling Of his short bob-tail, as it suited him Exceedingly, that sort of thing; Or, startled from her easy swing, The fluttering of a sea-bird's wing, The moaning cry of some lost bird, Or the dropping of a spar, is heard. And sudden, as from eternity, Quick to the eye and quickly missed, Just in and out of the driving mist, A something white moves slowly by, And you know that a ship is drifting nigh; A moment in, and a moment out, And then with the lull, a smothered shout, And all is dull and hushed again To the still small talk of the mighty rain; Or the '_Graves_,' that never can quiet be While a pulse is left in the heaving sea; The gossiping Graves, now off the lee You may hear them muttering; either side, As the ship heaves round with the lazy tide; And weary and faint, as a sick man raves, Is the senseless talk of the gossiping Graves. Farther down in the outer bay, Knocking about as best they may, The ships that rounded the cape to-day Lie off and on, with a slow chasseé; All sorts of freight, from tar to teas, All manner of craft, that skim the seas: Some, just come in from an eastern cruise, Are big with the latest China news; Some, ballasted with golden sand, Are perfumed from Arabia's strand; Some with a crust from the Levant, And some _without_, are from Nahant; (Oh, sweet to them as Sabbath bells Would be the ring of its rocky wells!) And many an enterprising Noah Is there, with latest news from shore; With pilot-boat so snug and taut, And motion of grace, like an æronaut Caught in a cloud, when the wind is low, The sky above and the sea below: But sauciest, among them all, The harlequin of the mist-masked ball, And livelier than the fisherman, With jaunty roll the pinkie trim Turns up his tail to the Indiaman, (Either end is the same to him,) Or skips around the steamer that plays Like a thing bewitched in the general maze; Feeling about, as shy of her limbs, And careful and slow as a blind man swims. And many a turn-coat stomach below, That held out bravely until now, Rises with every swell of the yeast Peculiar to No'th-East by East. II.