midnight
As the sun went down over the shining shoulders of the Western Atlantic , flashing its golden rays over the moving , liquid floor of the heaving ocean and Mediterranean Sea , William and myself stood on the topmost crag of giant Gibraltar , and the Bard sent forth this impulsive sigh from his romantic soul : _ How I long to roam o'er the bounding sea , Where the waters and winds are fierce and free , Where the wild bird sails in his tireless flight , As the sunrise scatters the shades of night ; Where the porpoise and dolphin sport at play In their liquid realm of green and gray . Ah , me ! It is there I would love to be Engulfed in the tomb of eternity ! _ _ In the midnight hour when the moon hangs low And the stars beam forth with a mystic glow ; When the mermaids float on the rolling tide And Neptune entangles his beaming bride , -- It is there in that phosphorescent wave I would gladly sink in an ocean grave -- To rise and fall with the songs of the sea And live in the chant of its memory . _ _ Around the world my form should sweep -- Part of the glorious , limitless deep ; Enmeshed by fate in some coral cave , And rising again to the topmost wave , That curls in beauty its snowy spray And kisses the light of the garish day ; Ah ! there let me drift when this life is o'er , To be tossed and tumbled from shore to shore ! _ I clapped my hands intensely at the rendition of the poem , and echo from her rocky caves sent back the applause , while the sea gulls in their circling flight , screamed in chorus to the voice of echo and the eternal roar of old ocean .