Classic Poem

(Centropristes nigricanus.)

Wide off Long Island's yellow beach,
Where fisher's plummet scarce may reach,
Deep-sunken in the depths of brine,
Where sea-weeds all the rocks entwine,
Where kelp its beaded ribbon flings,
And the black mussel closely clings,
And sea-dulse their long tresses flaunt,
There the dark sea-bass makes his haunt.
And where the Sound outspreads its plain
Extended to the tossing main,
Off Orient Point and green Plum Isle,
Where the Gut currents chafing boil,
Where Gardiner's Island and Gull-rocks
Breast and repel the ocean shocks,
There goes the fisher with his boat
Above the sunken ledge to float,
Skilful to take with baited line
The sable sea-bass of the brine.
I love to stand on rocks that throw
Deep shadows on the tides below,
And note the varied life that sweeps
The salt abysses of the deeps;
The sword-fish and the spouting whale,
The porpoise tumbling in the gale,
The dolphin and the grampus dark,
The sharp-finn'd, man-devouring shark,
The blue-fish leaping as they pass,
The strip'd and pearl-enamell'd bass;
The crab, the shrimp, the mussel-shell,
The sea-egg with its thorny cell,
The moss to slippery rock that clings,
The dulse, the sea-weed with its rings,
Its emerald garlands drifting wide,
Rising and falling with the tide, —
All these, the wealth of waters blue,
Are ever wondrous, ever new.