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'Tis the midnight hour -- the beauteous sea,
Calm as the cloudless heaven, the heaven discloses,
While many a sparkling star, in quiet glee,
Par down, within the watery sky reposes.
As if the ocean's heart were stirred
With inward life, a sound is heard,
Like that of dreamer murmuring in his sleep;
'Tis partly the billow, and partly the air,
That lies like a garment floating fair
Above the happy deep.
The sea, I ween, cannot be fanned
By evening freshness from the land,
For the land it is far away;
But God hath willed that the sky-born breeze
In the centre of the loneliest seas
Should ever sport and play.
The mighty moon she sits above,
Encircled with a zone of love,
A Zone of dim and tender light
That makes her wakeful eye more bright:
She seems to shine with a sunny ray,
And the night looks like a mellowed day!
The gracious mistress of the main
Hath now an undisturbed reign,
And from her silent throne looks down,
As upon children of her own,
On the waves that lend their gentle breast
In gladness for her couch of rest!
John Wilson (1785-1834)
Gems of Literature, Art and Music, 1887
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