The laboring and heaving of her waves
Like the toiling of all humanity at its task,
Braces the will with the story
Of our faithful ocean's endless day.
* * * * *
O, great Pacific! Often calm as a sea of glass,
Who durs't say that thou cans't not live
And bestir thyself with boisterous life;
That thou cans't not with growing fury hugely to thy defense arise,
When rebuffed by wind, by rock and cliff.
Thy deep is not an incessant, idle sleep!
Thou cans't heave and leap and live with ponderous life,
Until thy waves, up from the bottom turning, are all afoam with terrible rage,
Their salty crests mounting on tangled spray
And raining back to sea a million opals.
* * * * *
We love our sea and thy reserve of strength,
For thou art indeed the favorite of our God,
For when the Son of Man spoke to the snarling waves,
Thou of all waters didst best obey and heed the Master's mandate, "Peace be still."
But He commanded not eternal quite and thou art somewhat falsely famed.
For when necessity's hour arrives,
Thou with all violent seas canst throb from deepest heart;
With unrestrained power plunging to climb the skys, crushing against the rocks—
Sublimely tempestuous, majestic in rage, in fury glorious!
* * * * *
And after the waters' landward assault,
To-day we can better ascend to observe the ocean's peace.
And here, great Sea!—
How naturally hovers infinity over that hemispheric calm,
As from this rocky, shore-projecting cliff
We behold thy endless expanse over meridians and the world, into and behind the sky—vast, serene, stupendous.
And as we gaze and worship and pray, drenched with omnipotence,
We dare with highest emotions declare
That God, not once but always, walks the seas.
* * * * *
O life giving fount, a resurrecting breeze,
We cling to our sea, an army of men in cities and fields, on streams and on hills,
Because thou dost live and let live.
For daily thy breath kisses our shores with beauty and life,
Thy varying moods are an unspeakable comfort to all manly souls.
For thy grandeur holds an invisible gate of gold,
Through which sails a celestial mariner, the spirit of our Father, God.
* * * * *