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Poems for the Sea.
The snowy sail, and tossing flood
So fill'd my boyish thought,
And even at night, upon my bed,
Strange visions spoke to me,
And monsters play'd, and mermaids sung
Wild carols of the sea.
My father bade me learn a trade,
Or till the fallow land,
And told how healthful toil would heap
The silver in my hand;
But at his Death, alas! I broke
From all allegiance free,
And though my widowed mother wept,
I left her for the sea.
I've sail'd where arctic oceans spread,
And icy mountains frown,
And the fierce fire of tropic suns
Hath turn'd my breast so brown,
I've roam'd among the Indian isles,
Where grows the spicy tree,
