THE OCEAN.

WRITTEN AT SCARBOROUGH, IN THE SUMMER of

1805.

ALL hail to the ruins,* the rocks and the shores!

Thou wide-rolling OCEAN, all hail !

Now brilliant with sunbeams, and dimpled with oars, Now dark with the fresh-blowing gale,

While soft o'er thy bosom the cloud-shadows sail, And the silver-wing'd sea fowl on high,

Like meteors bespangle the sky,

Or dive in the gulph, or triumphantly ride,

Like foam on the surges, the swans of the tide.

* Scarborough Castle.

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-shadow'd

pole.

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

And the breezes that rock the light cradle of morn Are sweet as the Phoenix's pyre:

O regions of beauty, of love, and desire!

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 sun-beaming

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 noon-day 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 hurl'd,
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!

There are, gloomy OCEAN! a brotherless clan,

Who traverse thy banishing waves,

The

poor disinherited outcasts of man,

Whom Avarice coins into slaves!

From the homes of their kindred, their forefathers'

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 be

neath,

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;