The Cottage By the Sea by Horatio Alger, Jr.
Author: Alger, Horatio, 1832-1899.
Title: The Cottage by the Sea.
In: Gleason's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion. Boston : F. Gleason, 1853. Vol. 4, no. 19 (May 7, 1853).
Format: p. 298 ; 38 cm.
Other Name: Miller, Paul.
Horatio Alger Collection.
Other Title: Gleason's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion.
Location: PS 1029 .A3 (Special Collections)
Optically scanned and encoded by Mark A. Williams
Horatio Alger Digital Serials Project, Northern llinois University Libraries
We hired a cottage within sight of the seashore, and there lived happily for many months By day we wandered along the strand, entranced with the grand music which came pealing out from the vast organ of the sea, and gathered up the shells which the waters scattered liberally at our feet. We felt that in the vast cathedral of Nature, whose vaulted roof is the over-arching sky, this was the orchestra, and that from no instrument made by man could we hear music so solemn and impressive. But human happiness is of short duration. Claribel died, and in her grave all my hopes of bliss were forever buried.â€”Thackeray.
In a cottage, by the sea,
By the ever-rolling sea;
Where the surges rage and roar,
As they dash along the shore,
With their foaming crests of white,
Sparkling with reflected light;
Where the winds are moaning low
To the water's ebb and flow;
In the pleasant days gone by,
Fledâ€”alas! how silently !
In that cottage, by the sea,
Dwelt a maiden fair with me.
I remember how of yore
The twain wandered on the shore,
How we gathered from the strand
Sea-shells mingled with the sand;
How we listened all the while,
As in some cathedral-aisle,
To the music, soft and low,
Of the waters in their flow;
While the organ of the sea
Played for us a symphony,
Or anon, with lighter strain,
Breathed a musical refrain
O, I loved her passing well,
Dearly loved my Claribel;
But the days flew quickly by,
As the clouds along the sky;
As the stars that gem the night
Fly before the dawn of light.
Gone are all my hours of pleasure,
Vanished with my vanished treasure;
For a deathly shadow fell
On the brow of Claribel;
In my cottage, by the sea,
No one dweleth now but me!