  (For dramatic orchestration.) I. Fleecy white waters, Shorn by the tempest, Wrathful and doomful Rolling to land! Naked and lustrous, Fiercest of smiters, Straight for the stern cliffs, Iron to steel! Shock unto shock calls, Boom answers boom, Roars the huge tide-loom, Thunder and storm! Torn are the vast webs Woven of tumult, Flung to the cloud-rack, Tatters of sound! II. The glistening waters again Are marching loyal and true Under the hollow sky,— A hundred million of men Throbbing as fiery dew Under the morning's eye! List to the repetend note, Multiplex tone of the sea, Refrain of grief, of mirth, On violet air afloat Far borne to mountain and lea, To the home of its birth. List as its music unbraids:— Rivulets pour from the hill, Winds wash the lips o' the trees, The brook by the rocky glades Brattles its way to the mill Through fields adream with bees. Forests of pine and of fir Plain as their dark plumes are fret By the free-coursing winds; Alder and golden birch stir To notes too sweet to forget, Sung by brook as it winds. Hark! The lone laugh of the auk As 'twere a disprisoned soul come From out the shining foams! And the loon's "ha! ha!" and mock 'Mid the torn surf's booming drum, Or hushed tide's star-sprent domes! The ringdove coos in the grove, The cataract's thunders jar, Rapids swirl white and hiss; Peoples in temples of love Echo their anthems afar, Diapasons of bliss. Great flux of the world, O sea, Blood of earth's wild pulsing veins Beating to orbs afar, Your life and mine cannot be Unlinked with God's joys and pains Here or in throbbing star! List as its music unbraids, List to the much-sounding sea, List to the repetend note, Multiplex tone of the sea,— Refrain of grief, of mirth, On violet air afloat Far borne to mountain and lea, To the home of its birth. |
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