 | The Alhambra and Other Poems |  |
37
Ingens Aequor
“The huge various monotonies, the fervent and fluent
colours, the vast limits, the fresh sonorous strength, the
certain confusion and tumultuous law, the sense of windy
and weltering space, the intense refraction of shadow and
light, the crowded life and inanimate intricacy, the patience
and the passion of the sea.—A. C. Swinburne. “Essay on
William Blake.”
Come hither, O exquisite thought!
Come hither, O splendour of words!
Let a texture be woven and wrought,
Not to picture the flocks and the herds,
Not to celebrate forest or mead,
The loitering lapse of the rill,
The lisp of the breeze in the reed,
Or the gush of the wind on the hill,
The crypt of the midnight empearled
With the stars and the planets above,
The boisterous fame of the world,
Or the passionate silence of love,—
But in praise of the Sea; that immense
And vague glory of waters amassed;
That beauty transcending the sense,
Like a mirage, elusive and vast;
With shadow and image of cloud,
That palpitate, purple or pale,
With furrows of emerald, ploughed
By the murmuring, odorous gale;
With marvel of sunlight and mist,
With magic of mutable form,
With music of “wild waves whist,”
And slow subsidence of storm.
Come hither, O splendour of words!
Let a texture be woven and wrought,
Not to picture the flocks and the herds,
Not to celebrate forest or mead,
The loitering lapse of the rill,
The lisp of the breeze in the reed,
Or the gush of the wind on the hill,
The crypt of the midnight empearled
With the stars and the planets above,
The boisterous fame of the world,
Or the passionate silence of love,—
But in praise of the Sea; that immense
And vague glory of waters amassed;
That beauty transcending the sense,
Like a mirage, elusive and vast;
With shadow and image of cloud,
That palpitate, purple or pale,
38
By the murmuring, odorous gale;
With marvel of sunlight and mist,
With magic of mutable form,
With music of “wild waves whist,”
And slow subsidence of storm.
O chiming monotonous change!
O changeless melodious beat!
O refluent rhythmical range
Of fairy invisible feet!
The nations may traverse and trace
A populous path o'er the wave,
And with militant messages lace
The floor of the mariner's grave;
The peaks of the virginal snows
May be pierced for the clambering car;
The cleavage of ocean will close,
And his wounds have a transient scar!
The groves of the forest may fall,
The rivers grow black with the shame
Of their burden, the skies with their pall
Of the sulphurous refuse of flame;
War may trample o'er hill and o'er dale,
Trade may bruise all the fields with her tread,
The billow records not the trail
Of humanity, living or dead!
Unpolluted are channel and main,
Their breezes are fragrant and free;
Man cannot impress with his pain
The fugitive foam of the sea!
O changeless melodious beat!
O refluent rhythmical range
Of fairy invisible feet!
The nations may traverse and trace
A populous path o'er the wave,
And with militant messages lace
The floor of the mariner's grave;
The peaks of the virginal snows
May be pierced for the clambering car;
The cleavage of ocean will close,
And his wounds have a transient scar!
The groves of the forest may fall,
The rivers grow black with the shame
Of their burden, the skies with their pall
Of the sulphurous refuse of flame;
War may trample o'er hill and o'er dale,
Trade may bruise all the fields with her tread,
The billow records not the trail
Of humanity, living or dead!
Unpolluted are channel and main,
Their breezes are fragrant and free;
Man cannot impress with his pain
The fugitive foam of the sea!
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