Far Off-Shore

Look, the raft, a signal flying,
Thin--a shred;
None upon the lashed spars lying,
Quick or dead.

Cries the sea-fowl, hovering over,
"Crew, the crew?"
And the billow, reckless, rover,
Sweeps anew!

Herman Melville

Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet of the American Renaissance period. His most famous work, Moby-Dick, was published in 1851 and initially was not a commercial success. Melville's writing draws on his experiences at sea, philosophical musings, and criticisms of society. While he died in relative obscurity, his reputation grew significantly in the 20th century, and he is now considered one of America’s greatest writers. Melville’s other works include Typee, White-Jacket, and Billy Budd.

Herman Melville

On the Home Guards who perished in the Defense of Lexington, Missouri.

Herman Melville, Simple Poetry

On The Slain At Chickamauga

Herman Melville, Simple Poetry

The Night March

Herman Melville, Simple Poetry

English

Suggested Poems

Explore a curated selection of verses that share themes, styles, and emotional resonance with the poem you've just read.

John Marr And Other Sailors

Since as in night's deck-watch ye show,
Why, lads, so silent here to me,
Your watchmate of times long ago?
Once, for all the darkling sea,
You your voices raised how clearly,
Striking in when tempest sung;
Hoisting up the storm-sail cheerly,
Life is storm--let storm! you rung.
Taking things as fated merely,
Childlike though the world ye spanned;
Nor holding unto life too dearly,
Ye who held your lives in hand--
Skimmers, who on oceans four
Petrels were, and larks ashore.

O, not from memory lightly flung,
Forgot, like strains no more availing,
The heart to music haughtier strung;
Nay, frequent near me, never staleing,
Whose good feeling kept ye young.
Like tides that enter creek or stream,
Ye come, ye visit me, or seem
Swim...

Herman Melville

The Aeolian Harp

At The Surf Inn

List the harp in window wailing
Stirred by fitful gales from sea:
Shrieking up in mad crescendo--
Dying down in plaintive key!

Listen: less a strain ideal
Than Ariel's rendering of the Real.
What that Real is, let hint
A picture stamped in memory's mint.

Braced well up, with beams aslant,
Betwixt the continents sails the Phocion,
For Baltimore bound from Alicant.
Blue breezy skies white fleeces fleck
Over the chill blue white-capped ocean:
From yard-arm comes--"Wreck ho, a wreck!"

Dismasted and adrift,
Longtime a thing forsaken;
Overwashed by every wave
Like the slumbering kraken;
Heedless if the billow roar,
Oblivious of the lull,
Leagues and leagues from shoal or shore,
It sw...

Herman Melville

Off Cape Colonna

Aloof they crown the foreland lone,
From aloft they loftier rise--
Fair columns, in the aureole rolled
From sunned Greek seas and skies.
They wax, sublimed to fancy's view,
A god-like group against the blue.

Over much like gods! Serene they saw
The wolf-waves board the deck,
And headlong hull of Falconer,
And many a deadlier wreck.

Herman Melville

Pebbles

I
Though the Clerk of the Weather insist,
And lay down the weather-law,
Pintado and gannet they wist
That the winds blow whither they list
In tempest or flaw.

II
Old are the creeds, but stale the schools,
Revamped as the mode may veer,
But Orm from the schools to the beaches strays
And, finding a Conch hoar with time, he delays
And reverent lifts it to ear.
That Voice, pitched in far monotone,
Shall it swerve? shall it deviate ever?
The Seas have inspired it, and Truth--
Truth, varying from sameness never.

III
In hollows of the liquid hills
Where the long Blue Ridges run,
The flattery of no echo thrills,
For echo the seas have none;
Nor aught that gives man back man's strain--
The hope of his heart, the dream in his br...

Herman Melville

A Requiem

For Soldiers lost in Ocean Transports

When, after storms that woodlands rue,
To valleys comes atoning dawn,
The robins blithe their orchard-sports renew;
And meadow-larks, no more withdrawn
Caroling fly in the languid blue;
The while, from many a hid recess,
Alert to partake the blessedness,
The pouring mites their airy dance pursue.
So, after ocean's ghastly gales,
When laughing light of hoyden morning breaks,
    Every finny hider wakes--
From vaults profound swims up with
glittering scales;
Through the delightsome sea he sails,
With shoals of shining tiny things
Frolic on every wave that flings
Against the prow its showery spray;
All creatures joying in the morn,
Save them forever from joyance torn,
Whose bark was lost where...

Herman Melville

Old Counsel

Of The Young Master of a Wrecked California Clipper

Come out of the Golden Gate,
Go round the Horn with streamers,
Carry royals early and late;
But, brother, be not over-elate--
All hands save ship! has startled dreamers.

Herman Melville