O'ER the glad waters of the darkblue sea, Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free, Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam, Survey our empire, and behold our home! These are our realms, no limits to their sway; Our flag the sceptre all who meet obey. Ours the wild life in tumult still to range From toil to rest, and joy in every change. Oh! who can tell? not thou, luxurious slave! Whose soul would sicken o'er the heaving wave; DEEP in the wave is a coral grove, Where the purple mullet and goldfish rove; Where the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blue, That never are wet with falling dew, But in bright and changeful beauty shine Far down in the green and glassy brine. The floor is of sand, like the mountain drift, And the pearl-shells spangle the flinty snow: From coral rocks the sea-plants lift Their boughs, where the tides and billows flow; The water is calm and still below, For the winds and the waves are absent there, And the sands are bright as the stars that glow In the motionless fields of upper air: There with its waving blade of green, The sea-flag streams through the silent water, And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen To blush like a banner bathed in slaughter: There with a light and easy motion The fan coral sweeps through the clear deep sea; And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean Are bending like corn on the upland lea; And life, in rare and beautiful forms, Is sporting amid those bowers of stone. Where He the huge sea-monsters wracks, That lift the deep upon their backs, He gave us this eternal spring And throws the melons at our feet; With falling oars they kept the time. CAVE OF STAFFA. THANKS for the lessons of this spot, fit school For the presumptuous thoughts that would assign Mechanic laws to agency divine, And, measuring heaven by earth, would overrule Infinite power. The pillared vestibule, Expanding yet precise, the roof embowed, Might seem designed to humble man, when proud Of his best workmanship by plan and tool. Down-bearing with his whole Atlantic weight Of tide and tempest on the structure's base, And flashing upwards to its topmost height, Ocean has proved its strength, and of its grace In calms is conscious, finding for his freight Of softest music some responsive place. WORDSWORTH. |