Page:The Seaside and the Fireside.djvu/47

 All those secret currents, that flow With such resistless undertow, And lift and drift, with terrible force, The will from its moorings and its course. Therefore he spake, and thus said he:-- "Like unto ships far off at sea, Outward or homeward bound, are we. Before, behind, and all around, Floats and swings the horizon's bound, Seems at its distant rim to rise And climb the crystal wall of the skies, And then again to turn and sink, As if we could slide from its outer brink. Ah! it is not the sea, It is not the sea that sinks and shelves, But ourselves That rock and rise With endless and uneasy motion,