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 watery 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,
that reach'd even me.
Beneath repose, repose
Power, will, sensation, memory, fail'd in turn;
My very essence seem'd to pass away,
Like a thin cloud that melts across the moon,
Lost in the blue immensity of heaven.
LIFE's intermitting pulse again went on:
I woke amidst the beauty of a morn,
That shone as bright within me as around,
The presence-chamber of the soul was full
Of flitting images and rapturous thoughts;
For mind and eye were open'd to explore
The secrets of the abyss erewhile conceal'd.
The floor of ocean, never trod by man,
Was visible to me as heaven's round roof,
Which man hath never touch'd; the multitude
Of living things in that new hemisphere,
Gleam'd out of darkness, like the stars at midnight,
When moon nor clouds, with light or shade, obscure them.
For, as in hollows of the tide-worn reef,
Left at low water glistening in the sun,
Pellucid pools and rocks in miniature,
With their small fry of fishes, crusted shells,
Rich mosses, tree-like sea-weed, sparkling pebbles,
Enchant the eye, and tempt the eager hand
To violate the fairy paradise,
-So to my view the deep disclosed its wonders.
In the free element beneath me swam,
Flounder'd, and dived, in play, in chase, in battle,
Fishes of every colour, form, and kind,
(Strange forms, resplendent colours, kinds unnumber'd,)
Which language cannot paint, and mariner
Hath never seen; from dread Leviathan
To insect millions peopling every wave;
And nameless tribes, half-plant, half-animal,
Rooted and slumbering through a dream of life.
The livelier inmates to the surface sprang,
To taste the freshness of heaven's breath, and feel
That light is pleasant, and the sunbeam warm.
Most in the middle region sought their prey,
Safety, or pastime; solitary some,
And some in pairs affectionately join'd;
Others in shoals immense, like floating islands,
Led by mysterious instinct through that waste
And trackless region, though on every side
Assaulted by voracious enemies,
-Whales, sharks, and monsters, arm'd in front or jaw,
With swords, saws, spiral horns, or hooked fangs.
While ravening Death of slaughter ne'er grew weary,
Life multiplied the immortal meal as fast.
War, reckless, universal war, prevail'd;
All were devourers, all in turn devour'd;
Yet every unit in the uncounted sum
Of victims had its share of bliss, its pang,
And but a pang, of dissolution; each
Was happy till its moment came, and then
Its first, last suffering, unforeseen, unfear'd,
Closed, with one struggle, pain and life for ever.
So He ordain'd, whose way is in the sea,
His path amidst great waters, and his steps
Unknown;-whose judgments are a mighty deep,
Where plummet of Archangel's intellect
Could never yet find soundings, but from age
Το age let down, drawn up, then thrown again,
With lengthen'd line and added weight, still fails;
And still the cry in Heaven is, "Oh the depth!"
Thus, while bewilder'd with delight I gazed
On life in every shape it here assumed,
Congenial feeling made me follow it,
And try to be whatever I beheld;
By mental transmigration thus I pass'd
Through many a body, and in each essay'd
New instincts, powers, enjoyments, death itself;
Till, weary with the fanciful pursuit,
I started from that idle reverie.
Then grew my heart more desolate than ever;
Here had I found the beings which I sought,
-Beings for whom the universe was made,
Yet none of kindred with myself. In vain
I strove to waken sympathy in breasts
Cold as the element in which they moved,
And inaccessible to fellowship
With me, as sun and stars, as winds and vapours:
Sense had they, but no more; mind was not there.
They roam'd, they fed, they slept, they died, and left
Race after race, to roam, feed, sleep, then die,
And leave their like through endless generations;
-Incessant change of actors, none of scene,
Through all that boundless theatre of strife!
Shrinking into myself again, I cried,
In bitter disappointment,-" Is this all?"
I sent a glance at random from the cloud,
In which I then lay floating through mid-heaven,
To ocean's innermost recess;-when, lo!
Another seal of Nature's book was open'd,
Which held transported thought so deep entranced,
That Time, though borne through mightiest revolutions,
Seem'd, like the earth in motion, to stand still.
The works of ages grew beneath mine eye;
As rapid intellect calls up events,
Combines, compresses, moulds them, with such power, That, in a little page of memory,
An empire's annals lie,-a nation's fortunes
Pass in review, as motes through sunbeams pass,
Glistening and vanishing in quick succession,
Yet each distinct as though there were but one;
-So thrice a thousand years, with all their issues,
Hurried before me, through a gleam of Time,
Between the clouds of two eternities,―
That whence they came, and that to which they tended. Immeasurable continents beneath
Not strown,-as I have since discern'd the tracks
Of voyagers, with shipwrecks and their spoils,
The wealth of merchants, the artillery
Of war, the chains of captives, and the gems
That glow'd upon the brow of beauty; crowns
Of monarchs, swords of heroes, anchors lost,
That never had let go their hold in storms;
Helms, sunk in ports, that steer'd adventurous barks
Round the wide world; bones of dead men, that made
A hidden Golgotha where they had fallen,
Unseen, unsepulchred, but not unwept
By lover, friend, relation, far
Long waiting their return to home and country,
And going down into their fathers' graves
With their gray hairs or youthful locks in sorrow,
To meet no more till seas give up their dead :
Some too—ay thousands-whom none living mourn'd,
None miss'd,-waifs in the universe, the last,
Lorn links of kindred chains for ever sunder'd.
Not such the spectacle I now survey'd:
No broken hearts lay here; no aching heads,
For whose vast schemes the world was once too small,
And life too short, in Death's dark lap found rest
Beneath the unresting wave;-but skeletons
Of whales and krakens here and there were scatter'd,
The prey when dead of tribes, their prey when living:
And, seen by glimpses, but awakening thoughts
Too sad for utterance,-relics huge and strange
Of the old world that perish'd by the flood,
Kept under chains of darkness till the judgment.
-Save these, lay ocean's bed, as from the hand
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