| |
| HE crawls to the cliff and plays on a brink | |
| Where every eye but his own would shrink; | |
| No music he hears but the billow’s noise, | |
| And shells and weeds are his only toys. | |
| No lullaby can the mother find | 5 |
| To sing him to rest like the moaning wind; | |
| And the louder it wails and the fiercer it sweeps, | |
| The deeper he breathes and the sounder he sleeps. | |
| |
| And now his wandering feet can reach | |
| The rugged tracks of the desolate beach; | 10 |
| Creeping about like a Triton imp, | |
| To find the haunts of the crab and shrimp. | |
| He clings, with none to guide or help, | |
| To the furthest ridge of slippery kelp; | |
| And his bold heart glows while he stands and mocks | 15 |
| The seamew’s cry on the jutting rocks. | |
| |
| Few years have wan’d—and now he stands | |
| Bareheaded on the shelving sands. | |
| A boat is moor’d, but his young hands cope | |
| Right well with the twisted cable rope; | 20 |
| He frees the craft, she kisses the tide; | |
| The boy has climb’d her beaten side: | |
| She drifts—she floats—he shouts with glee; | |
| His soul hath claim’d its right on the sea. | |
| |
| ’T is vain to tell him the howling breath | 25 |
| Rides over the waters with wreck and death: | |
| He ’ll say there ’s more of fear and pain | |
| On the plague-ridden earth than the storm-lash’d main. | |
| ’T would be as wise to spend thy power | |
| In trying to lure the bee from the flower, | 30 |
| The lark from the sky, or the worm from the grave, | |
| As in weaning the Sea-Child from the wave. | |
| |
