And, Again, In The Evening Of A
Pleasant Day, It Was My Amusement To Count The Sails In Sight.
But
As the setting sun continually brought more and more to
light, still farther in the horizon, the last count always
Had
the advantage, till, by the time the last rays streamed over the
sea, I had doubled and trebled my first number; though I could no
longer class them all under the several heads of ships, barks,
brigs, schooners, and sloops, but most were faint generic
_vessels_ only. And then the temperate twilight light, perchance,
revealed the floating home of some sailor whose thoughts were
already alienated from this American coast, and directed towards
the Europe of our dreams. I have stood upon the same hill-top
when a thunder-shower, rolling down from the Catskills and
Highlands, passed over the island, deluging the land; and, when
it had suddenly left us in sunshine, have seen it overtake
successively, with its huge shadow and dark, descending wall of
rain, the vessels in the bay. Their bright sails were suddenly
drooping and dark, like the sides of barns, and they seemed to
shrink before the storm; while still far beyond them on the sea,
through this dark veil, gleamed the sunny sails of those vessels
which the storm had not yet reached. And at midnight, when all
around and overhead was darkness, I have seen a field of
trembling, silvery light far out on the sea, the reflection of
the moonlight from the ocean, as if beyond the precincts of our
night, where the moon traversed a cloudless heaven, - and
sometimes a dark speck in its midst, where some fortunate vessel
was pursuing its happy voyage by night.
But to us river sailors the sun never rose out of ocean waves,
but from some green coppice, and went down behind some dark
mountain line. We, too, were but dwellers on the shore, like the
bittern of the morning; and our pursuit, the wrecks of snails and
cockles. Nevertheless, we were contented to know the better one
fair particular shore.
My life is like a stroll upon the beach,
As near the ocean's edge as I can go,
My tardy steps its waves sometimes o'erreach,
Sometimes I stay to let them overflow.
My sole employment 't is, and scrupulous care,
To place my gains beyond the reach of tides,
Each smoother pebble, and each shell more rare,
Which ocean kindly to my hand confides.
I have but few companions on the shore,
They scorn the strand who sail upon the sea,
Yet oft I think the ocean they've sailed o'er
Is deeper known upon the strand to me.
The middle sea contains no crimson dulse,
Its deeper waves cast up no pearls to view,
Along the shore my hand is on its pulse,
And I converse with many a shipwrecked crew.
The small houses which were scattered along the river at
intervals of a mile or more were commonly out of sight to us, but
sometimes, when we rowed near the shore, we heard the peevish
note of a hen, or some slight domestic sound, which betrayed
them.
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