A war of mountains raged upon his surface;
Mountains each other swallowing, and again
New Alps and Andes, from unfathom❜d valleys
Upstarting, join'd the battle; like those sons
Of earth,-giants, rebounding as new-born
From every fall on their unwearied mother.
I glow'd with all the rapture of the strife:
Beneath was one wild whirl of foaming surges:
Above the array of lightnings, like the swords
Of cherubim, wide brandish'd, to repel
Aggression from heaven's gates; their flaming strokes
Quench'd momentarily in the vast abyss.
The voice of Him who walks upon the wind,
And sets his throne upon the floods, rebuked
The headlong tempest in its mid-career,
And turn'd its horrors to magnificence.
The evening sun broke through the embattled clouds,
And threw round sky and sea, as by enchantment,
A radiant girdle, binding them to peace,
In the full rainbow's harmony of beams;
No brilliant fragment, but one sevenfold circle,
That spann'd the horizon, meted out the heavens,
And underarch'd the ocean. 'Twas a scene,
That left itself for ever on my mind.
Night, silent, cool, transparent, crown'd the day;
The sky receded further into space,
The stars came lower down to meet the eye,
Till the whole hemisphere, alive with light,
Twinkled from east to west by one consent.
The constellations round the arctic pole,
That never set to us, here scarcely rose,
But in their stead, Orion through the north
Pursued the Pleiads; Sirius, with his keen,
Quick scintillations, in the zenith reign'd.
The south unveil'd its glories ;-there, the Wolf,
With eyes of lightning, watch'd the Centaur's spear;
Through the clear hyaline, the Ship of Heaven
Came sailing from eternity; the Dove,
On silver pinions, wing'd her peaceful way;
There, at the footstool of Jehovah's throne,
The Altar, kindled from his presence, blazed;
There, too, all else excelling, meekly shone
The Cross, the symbol of redeeming love:
The Heavens declared the glory of the Lord,
The firmament display'd his handy-work.
With scarce inferior lustre gleam'd the sea, Whose waves were spangled with phosphoric fire, As though the lightnings there had spent their shafts, And left the fragments glittering on the field.
Next morn, in mockery of a storm, the breeze
And waters skirmish'd; bubble-armies fought
Millions of battles on the crested surges,
And where they fell, all covered with their glory,
Traced in white foam on the cerulean main
Paths, like the milky-way among the stars.
Charm'd with the spectacle, yet deeply touch'd With a forlorn and not untender feeling
Why," said my thoughts within me," why this waste Of loveliness and grandeur unenjoy'd?
Is there no life throughout this fair existence?
Sky, sun, and sea, the moon, the stars, the clouds,
Wind, lightning, thunder, are but ministers;
They know not what they are, nor what they do:
O for the beings for whom these were made!"
Light as a flake of foam upon the wind, Keel upward from the deep emerged a shell, Shaped like the moon ere half her horn is fill❜d; Fraught with young life, it righted as it rose, And moved at will along the yielding water. The native pilot of this little bark
Put out a tier of oars on either side,
Spread to the wafting breeze a two-fold sail,
And mounted up and glided down the billow
In happy freedom, pleased to feel the air,
And wander in the luxury of light.
Worth all the dead creation, in that hour,
To me appear'd this lonely Nautilus,
My fellow-being, like myself alive.
Entranced in contemplation vague yet sweet,
I watch'd its vagrant course and rippling wake,
Till I forgot the sun amidst the heavens.
It closed, sunk, dwindled to a point, then nothing;
While the last bubble crown'd the dimpling eddy,
Through which mine eye still giddily pursued it,
A joyous creature vaulted through the air,-
The aspiring fish that fain would be a bird,
On long light wings, that flung a diamond shower
Of dew-drops round its evanescent form,
Sprang into light, and instantly descended.
Ere I could greet the stranger as a friend,
Or mourn his quick departure, on the surge,
A shoal of Dolphins, tumbling in wild glee,
Glow'd with such orient tints, they might have been
The rainbow's offspring, when it met the ocean
In that resplendent vision I had seen.
While yet in ecstasy I hung o'er these,
With every motion pouring out fresh beauties,
As though the conscious colours came and went
At pleasure, glorying in their subtle changes,-
Enormous o'er the flood, Leviathan
Look'd forth, and from his roaring nostrils sent
Two fountains to the sky, then plunged amain
In headlong pastime through the closing gulf.
These were but preludes to the revelry
That reign'd at sunset: then the deep let loose
Its blithe adventurers to sport at large,
As kindly instinct taught them; buoyant shells,
On stormless voyages, in fleets or single,
Wherried their tiny mariners; aloof,
On wing-like fins, in bow-and-arrow figures,
The flying-fishes darted to and fro;
While spouting Whales projected wat❜ry columns,
That turn'd to arches at their height, and seem'd
The skeletons of crystal palaces,
Built on the blue expanse, then perishing,
Frail as the element which they were made of:
Dolphins, in gambols, lent the lucid brine
Hues richer than the canopy of eve,
That overhung the scene with gorgeous clouds,
Decaying into gloom more beautiful
Than the sun's golden liveries which they lost:
Till light that hides, and darkness that reveals
The stars,-exchanging guard, like sentinels
Of day and night,—transform'd the face of nature:
Above was wakefulness, silence around,
Beneath, repose,-repose that reach'd even me.
Power, will, sensation, memory,
My very essence seem'd to pass away,
Like a thin cloud that melts across the moon,
Lost in the blue immensity of heaven.
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