CLXXII. These might have been her destiny; but no, How many From thy Sire's to his humblest subject's breast It linked the electric chain of that despair, Whose shock was as an earthquake's, and opprest The land which loved thee so, that none could love thee b. 66. Lo, Nemi! navelled in the woody hills The ocean o'er its boundary, and bears And, calm as cherish'd hate, its surface wears A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake, And near Albano's scarce divided waves Shine from a sister valley;—and afar 2 The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves Tully reposed from Rome;-and where yon bar The Sabine farm was till'd, the weary bard's delight. 67 CLXXV. But I forgot. My pilgrim's shrine is won, His task and mine alike are nearly done; Yet once more let us look upon the sea; The midland ocean breaks on him and me And from the Alban Mount we now behold Our friend of youth, that ocean, which when we Beheld it last by Calpe's rock unfold Those waves, we followed CLXXVI, Upon the blue Symplegades : long years Long, though not very many, since have done Have left us nearly where we had begun : We have had our reward-and it is here; CLXXVII. Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling place With one fair Spirit for my minister 2 That I might all forget the human race, 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, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar : To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne'er express, yet can not all conceal. CLXXIX. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll! A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown, CLXXX. 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 For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, CLXXXI. The armaments which thunderstrike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, The oak liviathans, whose huge ribs make Of Lord of thee, and arbiter of war; which mar These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, 'Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of TRAFALGAR, CLXXXII. Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee- Thy waters wasted them while they we free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey their decay The stranger, slave, or savage; 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 Glasses itself in tempests, in tempests in all time, Calm or convuls'd-in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime 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 |