Still move we on the path where none returns,
Where wait afar, or near, our funeral urns,
That mystic path, whose ways are all unknown,
For only life's surprises make us great.

Yet still I dream, as o'er the swelling deep,
I gaze upon the far enchanted shore,
Through whose retreats the memory-brooding sea
Rolls in deep monotone continually.
Waves of soft melody, which fall asleep
In rosy glens that I may see no more.

O holy music of the flowing sea,
Heard never but at eve, when shifts and gleams
On waves afar the light of joy still ours,
Because remembered still, thy voice o'erpowers
My soul with pensiveness, sweet reverie
And memory of half-forgotten dreams.

Twas early, Sea of Life, I loved thee well,
And mused betimes upon thy strand, till rolled
Ashore from Daylight's wreck her gilded spars,
And Night, in thee, a chandelier of stars
Had hung, to light the grots where mermen dwell,
The deep-sea grots of amethyst and gold.

Beyond thee, when thou wert of gentle mood,
And held with all the weary winds a truce,
Upon the other shore I could descry
Where, faintly outlined in the western sky,