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The gracious Mount, aware of his wrong'd worth,
Made generous answer in grave tones and sweet;
Around him gazing, east, west, south, and north,
With kingly calm that claim'd attention meet;
While that sick shrew spat her foul spittle forth
And in her own filth wallow'd at his feet.
His voice was as the sighing of a breeze
Born on the bosom of the boundless seas:

“Friend, leave to the human race
The inhuman habit of war!
To each in the world his place,
And we are whatever we are.
To each his good and his ill:
And the ill of the good made mine
Is that, doom'd to forever be still,
I must ever for motion pine.
The bees and the butterflies
Hover over the blossom bells;
And the birds in the balmy skies,
And the feathery-sail'd seed-cells,
They wander about; and I,
As I watch them, wish that I were
A bee, or a butterfly,
Or a little bird of the air!
But to each in the world his place,
And to every ill some good.
Unto me my granite base,
And to thee thy shelter'd flood.
Yet O, how the spirit in me
Is troubled when bound, alas,
To this granite base, I see
(As the pure winds over me pass)
The leaflet leap on the tree,
And the flow'ret nod in the grass,
And the long grass wave on the lea,
And the reed in the wan morass!
And thou, too? Dost thou not feel
(When the sedge to the low wind sighs)
Sweet tremors over thee steal,
And a rapture of ripples arise?
Say, wouldst thou not follow the wind
In a wave of wonder away,
Were thy waters unconfined
By their osier cradle grey?
The hungry ocean, hidden
By me from the heedless land;
Which it leaps to devour, and, chidden,
Falls back at my mute command:
Fares it better than thou who, rockt
By low-breathing winds, and fann'd
To sleep, liest safely lockt
In the hollow of earth's huge hand?
No! it suffers the same effect,
Only all on a vaster scale.
And if thy small fleets unwreckt
Are but blown by a baby gale,
(Dead leaflets gaily speckt,
With a spider's web for a sail)
Whilst yonder (a floating fort)
The battle-ship huge, that mocks
The enemy's bellowing port,
Sinks shatter'd on surfy rocks.
Who shelters thee, thankless Queen,
Secure in thy small domain?
I, the friend of whose shade serene
Thy churlish lips complain!
I, the giant who stand between
Thy rest and the roaring main!”