Of the breaking wave before.

When night on the ocean sinks calmly down,
I climb the vessel's prow,
Where the foam-wreath glows with its phosphor light,
Like a crown on a sea-nymph's brow.
Above, through the lattice of rope and spar,
The stars in their beauty burn;
And the spirit longs to ride their beams,
And back to the loved return.

They say that the sunset is brighter far
When it sinks behind the sea;
That the stars shine out with a softer fire--
Not thus they seem to me.
Dearer the flush of the crimson west
Through trees that my childhood knew.
When the star of love with its silver lamp,
Lights the homes of the tried and true!

Could one live on the sense of beauty alone, exempt from the necessity
of "creature comforts," a sea-voyage would be delightful. To the
landsman there is sublimity in the wild and ever-varied forms of the
ocean; they fill his mind with living images of a glory he had only
dreamed of before. But we would have been willing to forego all this and
get back the comforts of the shore. At New York we took passage in the
second cabin of the Oxford, which, as usual in the Liverpool packets,
consisted of a small space amid-ships, fitted up with rough, temporary
berths. The communication with the deck is by an open hatchway, which in
storms is closed down. As the passengers in this cabin furnish their