CLXXVI. Upon the blue Symplegades: long years Long, though not very many, since have done Have left us nearly where we had begun : CLXXVII. ' Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling place, With one fair Spirit for my minister, That I might all forget the human race, And, hating no one, love but only her! Ye Elements !—in whose ennobling stir I feel myself exalted-Can ye not In deeming such inhabit many a spot? Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot. CLXXVIII. There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, CLXXIX. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll! He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown. His steps are not upon thy paths,-thy fields Are not a spoil for him,-thou dost arise And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And dashest him again to earth :-there let him lay. CLXXXI. The armaments which thunderstrike the walls And monarchs tremble in their capitals, The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war; These are thy toys, and, as the CLXXXII. Thy shores are empires, changed in all save theeAssyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts:-not so thou, Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play— Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure browSuch as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. CLXXXIII. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm, Dark-heaving;-boundless, endless, and sublime The image of Eternity-the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. CLXXXIV. And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy my hand upon thy mane-as I do here. CLXXXV. My task is done my song hath ceased-my theme Has died into an echo; it is fit The spell should break of this protracted dream. The torch shall be extinguish'd which hath lit My midnight lamp-and what is writ, is writ,— Would it were worthier! but I am not now That which I have been-and my visions flit Less palpably before me-and the glow Which in my spirit dwelt, is fluttering, faint, and low. |