Dover Beach

[Doc Vernon]

Dover Beach

• THE sea is calm to-night,

  The tide is full, the moon lies fair

  Upon the straits; -- on the French coast the light

  Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,

  Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

  Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!

  Only, from the long line of spray

  Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,

  Listen! you hear the grating roar

  Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,

  At their return, up the high strand,

  Begin, and cease, and then again begin,

  With tremulous cadence slow, and bring

  The eternal note of sadness in.

  Sophocles long ago

  Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought

  Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow

  Of human misery; we

  Find also in the sound a thought,

  Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

  The sea of faith

  Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore

  Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furl'd.

  But now I only hear

  Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,

  Retreating, to the breath

  Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear

  And naked shingles of the world.

  Ah, love, let us be true

  To one another! for the world which seems

  To lie before us like a land of dreams,

  So various, so beautiful, so new,

  Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,

  Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

  And we are here as on a darkling plain

  Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

  Where ignorant armies clash by night.

  Matthew Arnold

[Doc Vernon]

Ye Mariners of England

• YE mariners of England

  That guard our native seas;

  Whose flag has braved, a thousand years,

  The battle and the breeze!

  Your glorious standard launch again

  To match another foe,

  And sweep through the deep,

  While the stormy winds do blow;

  While the battle rages loud and long,

  And the stormy winds do blow.

  The spirits of your fathers

  Shall start from every wave,

  For the deck it was their field of fame,

  And ocean was their grave:

  Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell,

  Your manly hearts shall glow,

  As ye sweep through the deep,

  While the stormy winds do blow;

  While the battle rages loud and long,

  And the stormy winds do blow.

  Britannia needs no bulwarks,

  No towers along the steep;

  Her march is o'er the mountain-waves,

  Her home is on the deep.

  With thunders from her native oak,

  She quells the floods below,--

  As they roar on the shore,

  When the stormy winds do blow;

  When the battle rages loud and long,

  And the stormy winds do blow.

  The meteor flag of England

  Shall yet terrific burn;

  Till danger's troubled night depart,

  And the star of peace return.

  Then, then, ye ocean warriors,

  Our song and feast shall flow

  To the fame of your name,

  When the storm has ceased to blow;

  When the fiery fight is heard no more,

  And the storm has ceased to blow.

  Thomas Campbell

[Doc Vernon]

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 hearts shall be,

  While the winds and the waters rave,

  A home on the rolling sea!

  A life on the ocean wave!

  Epes Sargent

[Keith at Tregenna]

Appreciated. K.

[Keith at Tregenna]

I AM FINDING IT DIFFICULT TO SOURCE THINGS NOT POSTED BEFORE.

Thanks Doc.

Request for anyone else to assist.

K.

[Bill Morrison]

Thanks Doc for these nautical verses. When I was a wee lad at school I had to recite Sir Henry Newbolt's The Fighting Temeraire with the tears running down my cheeks and it still brings a tear to my eye.
I have had a print of the The Fighting Temeraire by Turner for nearly fifty years and I mentioned this someone on an other site and he recommended I obtain a copy of a book The Last of the WOODEN WALLS of England. It contains the history of fifteen of the last wooden capital warship of the Royal Navy followed by verses of poetry, a great book if you can buy one.
Bill