Nor on the stage Of rural landscape are there lights and shades Mighty Sea! To thee that couldst subdue the Earth itself, And brook'st commandment from the heavens alone Yet, potent Sea! That power and grandeur can be so serene, The inhabitants of other worlds behold A blind worm in the dust, great Deep, the man And with thy tints and motion stir its chords The Spirit of the Universe in thee Is therefore bound to thee with holy love. Earth has her gorgeous towns; the earth-circling sea On wheel or wing. The chariot of the land In long array, or hither flit and yond There is a magnet-like attraction in And pictures things unseen. To realms beyond The trade-winds and to stem the ecliptic surge. True, to the dream of Fancy, Ocean has. That chequers not its usefulness to man With casual terror? Scathes not Earth sometimes Their shrieking cities, and, with one last clang I should-old Ocean's Saturnalian days Our pensile globe revolve in purer air. Here Morn and Eve with blushing thanks receive Their freshening dews, gay fluttering breezes cool Their wings to fan the brow of fevered climes, And here the Spring dips down her emerald urn For showers to glad the earth. Old Ocean was Infinity of ages ere we breathed Existence and he will be beautiful When all the living world that sees him now In thundering concert with the quiring winds; |