Toll for the brave!—

The brave that are no more!

All sunk beneath the wave,

Fast by their native shore!

William Cowper (1731-1800): On the Loss of the Royal George.

Oh why should the spirit of mortal be proud?

Like a fast-flitting meteor, a fast-flying cloud,

A flash of the lightning, a break of the wave,

He passes from life to his rest in the grave.

William Knox (1789-1825): Mortality.

Sabrina fair,

Listen where thou art sitting

Under the glassy, cool, translucent wave,

In twisted braids of lilies knitting

The loose train of thy amber-dropping hair.

John Milton (1608-1674): Comus. Line 859.

Mine be the breezy hill that skirts the down,

Where a green grassy turf is all I crave,

With here and there a violet bestrewn,

Fast by a brook or fountain's murmuring wave;

And many an evening sun shine sweetly on my grave!

James Beattie (1735-1803): The Minstrel. Book ii. Stanza 17.

A life on the ocean wave!

A home on the rolling deep,

Where the scattered waters rave,

And the winds their revels keep!

Epes Sargent (1813-1881): Life on the Ocean Wave.

And the star-spangled banner, oh long may it wave

O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

Henry Clay (1777-1852): The Star-Spangled Banner.

The combat deepens. On, ye brave,

Who rush to glory or the grave!

Wave, Munich! all thy banners wave,

And charge with all thy chivalry!

Thomas Campbell (1777-1844): Hohenlinden.

We watch'd her breathing through the night,

Her breathing soft and low,

As in her breast the wave of life

Kept heaving to and fro.

Thomas Hood (1798-1845): The Death-Bed.

Oh the heart is a free and a fetterless thing,—

A wave of the ocean, a bird on the wing!

Julia Pardoe (1816-1862): The Captive Greek Girl.

When you do dance, I wish you

A wave o' the sea, that you might ever do

Nothing but that.

William Shakespeare (1564-1616): The Winter's Tale. Act iv. Sc. 4.

So fades a summer cloud away;

So sinks the gale when storms are o'er;

So gently shuts the eye of day;

So dies a wave along the shore.

Mrs Barbauld (1743-1825): The Death of the Virtuous.

Spangling the wave with lights as vain

As pleasures in the vale of pain,

That dazzle as they fade.

Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832): Lord of the Isles. Canto i. Stanza 23.

Thus woe succeeds a woe, as wave a wave.

Robert Herrick (1591-1674): Sorrows Succeed.

And ne'er shall the sons of Columbia be slaves,

While the earth bears a plant or the sea rolls its waves.

Robert Treat Paine (1772-1811): Adams and Liberty.

A winning wave, deserving note,

In the tempestuous petticoat;

A careless shoe-string, in whose tie

I see a wild civility,—

Do more bewitch me than when art

Is too precise in every part.

Robert Herrick (1591-1674): Delight in Disorder.

For every wave with dimpled face

That leap'd upon the air,

Had caught a star in its embrace

And held it trembling there.

Amelia B. Welby (1821-1852): Musings. Stanza 4.