Surely oak and threefold brass surrounded his heart, who first trusted a frail vessel to the merciless ocean.
Horace, by Buckley.—Ode III. Line 6.
Hearts, sure, of brass they had, who tempted first
Rude seas that spare not what themselves have nursed.
Waller.—Battle of the Summer Islands, Canto II. Line 102.
It was a brave attempt! advent’rous he,
Who in the first ship broke the unknown sea;
And, leaving his
dear native shores behind,
Trusted his life to the licentious wind.
Dr. Watts.—Lyric Poems, Launching into Eternity.
The sea! the sea! the open sea!
The blue, the fresh, the ever free!
Barry Cornwall.—A Song.
Seas rough with black winds and storms.
Milton.—Translation of Horace, Ode V. Book 1.
I cannot, ’twixt the heaven and the main,
Descry a sail.
Shakespeare.—Othello, Act II. Scene 1. (A Gentleman to Montano.)
Betwixt the firmament and it, you cannot thrust a bodkin’s point.
Shakespeare.—Winter’s Tale, Act III. Scene 3. (Clown to a Shepherd.)
SEA.—Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell—
Then
some leap’d overboard with dreadful yell,
And the sea yawn’d around
her like a hell,
Like one who grapples with his enemy,
Byron.—Don Juan, Canto II. Stanza 52.
I saw a thousand fearful wracks:
A thousand men that fishes gnaw’d upon:
Wedges of gold, great anchors,
heaps of pearl,
Inestimable stones, unvalued jewels,
All scatter’d in the bottom of the sea.
Some lay in
dead men’s skulls; and in those holes
Where eyes did once inhabit there were crept,
As ’twere in scorn
of eyes, reflecting gems,
That woo’d the slimy bottom of the deep,
And mock’d the dead bones that lay
scatter’d by.
Shakespeare.—King Richard III. Act I. Scene 4. (Clarence’s Dream.)
O’er the glad waters of the dark blue sea,
Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free,
Far as the
breeze can bear, the billows foam,
Survey our empire, and behold our home!
Byron.—The Corsair, Canto I. Stanza 1.
Ours are the tears, though few, sincerely shed,
While Ocean shrouds and sepulchres our dead.
Byron.—The Corsair, Canto I. Stanza 1.
Oh! what can sanctify the joys of home,
Like Hope’s gay glance from Ocean’s troubled foam.
Byron.—The Corsair, Canto III. Stanza 18.