The leathern mail rebounds the hail; the rattling cinders strew The ground around; at every bound the sweltering fountains flow; 20 And thick and loud the swinking crowd, at every stroke, pant. "Ho!" Leap out, leap out, my masters; leap out and lay on load! Let's forge a goodly anchor, a bower, thick and broad; For a heart of oak is hanging on every blow, I bode, And I see the good ship riding, all in a perilous road, The low reef roaring on her lee, the roll of ocean poured From stem to stern, sea after sea; the mainmast by the board; The bulwarks down, the rudder gone, the boats stove at the chains, But courage still, brave mariners, the bower still remains, And not an inch to flinch he deigns save when ye pitch sky-high, 30 Then moves his head, as though he said, “Fear nothing, here am I!" Swing in your strokes in crder, let foot and hand keep time; Your blows make music sweeter far than any steeple's chime; But while you sling your sledges, sing; and let the burden be, The Anchor is the Anvil-King, and royal craftsmen we! Strike in, strike in-the sparks begin to dull their rustling red! Our hammers ring with sharper din, our work will soon be sped: Our anchor soon must change his bed of fiery rich array For a hammock at the roaring bows, or an oozy couch of clay; Our anchor soon must change the lay of merry craftsmen here, 40 For the Yeo-heave-o', and the Heave-away, and the sighing seaman's cheer; When, weighing slow, at eve they go-far, far from love and home; And sobbing sweethearts, in a row, wail o'er the ocean foam. In livid and obdurate gloom, he darkens down at last: A shapely one he is, and strong as e'er from cat was cast. O trusted and trustworthy guard, if thou hadst life like me, What pleasures would thy toils reward beneath the deep green sea! O deep Sea-diver, who might then behold such sights as thou? The hoary monsters' palaces! methinks what joy 't were now To go plumb plunging down amid the assembly of the whales, And feel the churned sea round me boil beneath their scourging tails! Then deep in tangle-woods to fight the fierce sez unicorn, And send him foiled and bellowing back, for al his ivory horn; To leave the subtle sworder-fish of bony blade for lorn; And for the ghastly-grinning shark, to laugh his jaws to scorn; To leap down on the kraken's back, where 'mid Norwegian isles He lies, a lubber anchorage for sudden shallowed miles, Till snorting, like an under-sea volcano, off he rolls; Meanwhile to swing, a-buffeting the far-astonished shoals Of his black-browsing ocean-calves; or, haply in a cove, 60 Shell-strewn, and consecrate of old to some Undine's love, To find the long-haired mermaidens; or, hard by icy lands, To wrestle with the Sea-serpent upon cerulean sands. O broad-armed Fisher of the Deep, whose sports can equal thine? The Dolphin weighs a thousand tons that tugs thy cable line; And night by night 't is thy delight, thy glory day by day, Through sable sea and breaker white, the giant game to play; But, shamer of our little sports! forgive the name I gave, A fisher's joy is to destroy, thine office is to save. O lodger in the sea-king's halls, couldst thou but understand Whose be the white bones by thy side, or who that dripping band, Slow swaying in the heaving waves that round about thee bend, With sounds like breakers in a dream, blessing their ancient friend: O, couldst thou know what heroes glide with larger steps round thee, 70 Thine iron side would swell with pride; thou 'dst leap within the sea! Give honour to their memories who left the pleas ant strand,: To shed their blood so freely for the love of Who left their chance of quiet age and grassy churchyard grave, So freely for a restless bed amid the tossing wave; Oh, though our Anchor may not be all I have fondly sung, Honour, him for their memory, whose bones he goes among! 80 1832. Samuel Ferguson. SEAWEED WHEN descends on the Atlantic The gigantic Storm-wind of the equinox, Landward in his wrath he scourges Laden with seaweed from the rocks: From Bermuda's reefs; from edges In some far-off, bright Azore; Silver-flashing. Surges of San Salvador; From the tumbling surf, that buries The Orkneyan skerries, Answering the hoarse Hebrides; And from wrecks of ships, and drifting Spars, uplifting On the desolate, rainy seas; Ever drifting, drifting, drifting |