Pagina-afbeeldingen
PDF
ePub

THE SEA.

[ocr errors]

BEAUTIFUL, sublime, and glorious;
Mild, majestic, foaming, free,
Over time itself victorious,
Image of eternity!

Sun and moon and stars shine o'er thee,
See thy surface ebb and flow,
Yet attempt not to explore thee

In thy soundless depths below.
Whether morning's splendors steep thee
With the rainbow's glowing grace,
Tempests rouse, or navies sweep thee,
"T is but for a moment's space.
Earth, her valleys and her mountains,
Mortal man's behests obey;
The unfathomable fountains

Scoff his search and scorn his sway.

[blocks in formation]

Now dark with the fresh-blowing gale,

O gardens of Eden! in vain

Placed far on the fathomless main,

Where Nature with Innocence dwelt in her youth, When pure was her heart and unbroken her truth

But now the fair rivers of Paradise wind
Through countries and kingdoms o'erthrown;
Where the giant of tyranny crushes mankind,
Where he reigns, and will soon reign alone;
For wide and more wide, o'er the sunbeaming zone
He stretches his hundred-fold arms,
Despoiling, destroying its charms;
Beneath his broad footstep the Ganges is dry,
And the mountains recoil from the flash of his eye.

Thus the pestilent Upas, the demon of trees,
Its boughs o'er the wilderness spreads,
And with livid contagion polluting the breeze,
Its mildewing influence sheds;

The birds on the wing, and the flowers in their beds,
Are slain by its venomous breath,

That darkens the noonday with death,

And pale ghosts of travellers wander around, While their mouldering skeletons whiten the ground.

Ah! why hath Jehovah, in forming the world, With the waters divided the land,

His ramparts of rocks round the continent hurled,
And cradled the deep in his hand,

If man may transgress his eternal command,
And leap o'er the bounds of his birth,
To ravage the uttermost earth,

And violate nations and realms that should be
Distinct as the billows, yet one as the sea?

While soft o'er thy bosom the cloud-shadows sail, There are, gloomy Ocean, a brotherless clan,

And the silver-winged sea-fowl on high,
Like meteors bespangle the sky,

Or dive in the gulf, or triumphantly ride,
Like foam on the surges, the swans of the tide.

From the tumult and smoke of the city set free,
With eager and awful delight,

From the crest of the mountain I gaze upon thee,
I gaze, and am changed at the sight;
For mine eye is illumined, my genius takes flight,
My soul, like the sun, with a glance
Embraces the boundless expanse,

And moves on thy waters, wherever they roll, From the day-darting zone to the night-shadowed pole.

My spirit descends where the day-spring is born, Where the billows are rubies on fire,

Who traverse thy banishing waves,
The poor disinherited outcasts of man,
Whom Avarice coins into slaves.

From the homes of their kindred, their fore. fathers' graves,

Love, friendship, and conjugal bliss,
They are dragged on the hoary abyss;
The shark hears their shrieks, and, ascending to-
day,

Demands of the spoiler his share of the prey.

Then joy to the tempest that whelms them beneath,
And makes their destruction its sport;
But woe to the winds that propitiously breathe,
And waft them in safety to port,

Where the vultures and vampires of Mammon resort;

Where Europe exultingly drains

And the breezes that rock the light cradle of morn The life-blood from Africa's veins ;

Are sweet as the Phoenix's pyre.

O regions of beauty, of love and desire!

Where man rules o'er man with a merciless rod, And spurns at his footstool the image of God!

The hour is approaching, a terrible hour!
And Vengeance is bending her bow;
Already the clouds of the hurricane lower,
And the rock-rending whirlwinds blow;
Back rolls the huge Ocean, hell opens below;
The floods return headlong, - they sweep
The slave-cultured lands to the deep,

In a moment entombed in the horrible void,
By their Maker himself in his anger destroyed.

The blood of our ancestors nourished the tree;
From their tombs, from their ashes, it sprung;
Its boughs with their trophies are hung;
Their spirit dwells in it, and -hark! for it
spoke,

The voice of our fathers ascends from their oak.

"Ye Britons, who dwell where we conquered of old,

Who inherit our battle-field graves;

Shall this be the fate of the cane-planted isles,
More lovely than clouds in the west,
When the sun o'er the ocean descending in smiles, We were not, we could not be, slaves;
Sinks softly and sweetly to rest?

Though poor were your fathers, — gigantic and
bold,

[blocks in formation]

As homeward my weary-winged Fancy extends
Her star-lighted course through the skies,
High over the mighty Atlantic ascends,
And turns upon Europe her eyes:

Ah me! what new prospects, new horrors arise?
I see the war-tempested flood

All foaming, and panting with blood;
The panic-struck Ocean in agony roars,
Rebounds from the battle, and flies to his shores.

For Britannia is wielding the trident to-day,
Consuming her foes in her ire,

And hurling her thunder with absolute sway
From her wave-ruling chariots of fire.

But firm as our rocks, and as free as our waves,
The spears of the Romans we broke,
We never stooped under their yoke.

[blocks in formation]

ADDRESS TO THE OCEAN.

O THOU vast Ocean! ever-sounding Sea!
Thou symbol of a drear immensity!
Thou thing that windest round the solid world
Like a huge animal, which, downward hurled
From the black clouds, lies weltering and alone,
Lashing and writhing till its strength be gone!
Thy voice is like the thunder, and thy sleep
Is as a giant's slumber, loud and deep.
Thou speakest in the east and in the west
At once, and on thy heavily laden breast
Fleets come and go, and shapes that have no life
Or motion, yet are moved and meet in strife.

She triumphs; the winds and the waters con- The earth has naught of this: no chance or change spire

To spread her invincible name;

The universe rings with her fame;

Ruffles its surface, and no spirits dare
Give answer to the tempest-wakened air;
But o'er its wastes the weakly tenants range

But the cries of the fatherless mix with her At will, and wound its bosom as they go :

praise, Ever the same, it hath no ebb, no flow : And the tears of the widow are shed on her bays. But in their stated rounds the seasons come,

And pass like visions to their wonted home;

O Britain, dear Britain! the land of my birth; And come again, and vanish; the young Spring O Isle most enchantingly fair!

Looks ever bright with leaves and blossoming;

Thou Pearl of the Ocean! thou Gem of the Earth! And Winter always winds his sullen horn,
O my Mother, my Mother, beware,
For wealth is a phantom, and empire a snare!
O, let not thy birthright be sold
For reprobate glory and gold!

Thy distant dominions like wild graftings shoot,
They weigh down thy trunk, they will tear up
thy root, -

When the wild Autumn, with a look forlorn,
Dies in his stormy manhood; and the skies
Weep, and flowers sicken, when the summer flies.
O, wonderful thou art, great element,
And fearful in thy spleeny humors bent,
And lovely in repose! thy summer form
Is beautiful, and when thy silver waves
Make music in earth's dark and winding caves,

The root of thine oak, O my country! that I love to wander on thy pebbled beach,

stands

Rock-planted and flourishing free;

Marking the sunlight at the evening hour, And hearken to the thoughts thy waters teach, Its branches are stretched o'er the uttermost lands, Eternity - Eternity and Power. And its shadow eclipses the sea.

BARRY CORNWALL.

[graphic][merged small][merged small]
[blocks in formation]
« VorigeDoorgaan »