Composed By The Seashore

What mischief cleaves to unsubdued regret, How fancy sickens by vague hopes beset; How baffled projects on the spirit prey, And fruitless wishes eat the heart away, The Sailor knows; he best, whose lot is cast On the relentless sea that holds him fast On chance dependent, and the fickle star Of power, through long and melancholy war. O sad it is, in sight of foreign shores, Daily to think on old familiar doors, Hearths loved in childhood, and ancestral floors; Or, tossed about along a waste of foam, To ruminate on that delightful home Which with the dear Betrothed 'was' to come; Or came and was and is, yet meets the eye Never but in the world of memory; Or in a dream recalled, whose smoothest range Is crossed by knowledge, or by dread, of change, And if not so, whose perfect joy makes sleep A thing too bright for breathing man to keep. Hail to the virtues which that perilous life Extracts from Nature's elemental strife; And welcome glory won in battles fought As bravely as the foe was keenly sought. But to each gallant Captain and his crew A less imperious sympathy is due, Such as my verse now yields, while moonbeams play On the mute sea in this unruffled bay; Such as will promptly flow from every breast, Where good men, disappointed in the quest Of wealth and power and honours, long for rest; Or, having known the splendours of success, Sigh for the obscurities of happiness.