 | Marah |  |
137
OCEANUS
1
Like a strong, beautiful, ill-used wild beast,The Ocean, caged between its craggy shores,
Stretches its long limbs out, with panting breast,
And rolls, and roars.
2
Its large lair is for its large life too small.For here are the world's waters all in one,
And all the sounds of all the nations, all
In a single tone!
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3
Hark! With the monstrous murmurs of the PnyxHere do a hundred thousand litanies
From Christendom's cathedral organs mix;
And here the sighs
4
Breathed by a million breaking hearts are heard;Here the long roar of the fierce Roman crowd
Comes rolling Capitolian echoes, stirr'd
To response loud
5
When Cæsar graced the gladiatorial show,And from the reeking circus rose to him
The death-shriek of the doom'd who died below,
Torn limb from limb.
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6
Harken again! A whisper from afar,Faint, but how fearful! Like the sighing breath
Of some plague-smitten city, a red star
Scorches to death.
7
But from the silence the sound preys uponIt gathers strength, and breaks into low thunder
As of a huge host heavily marching on,
Laden with plunder.
8
Italy, when the midnight moons went downLong ages since upon her dark blue plains,
Heard it, and shudder'd. Heard the tongues unknown,
The rumbling wains,
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9
The riot of barbarian vanquishers,The mountains moving to the Ostian shore
Over those beautiful bruised limbs of hers,
With an ominous roar.
10
Ay! All earth's sounds, on all earth's waters borne,Meet here in dreadful interchange. And over
Ocean's drear bosom, beating wings forlorn,
Lost echoes hover.
11
The echoes of all sorrows and all crimesSuffer'd or perpetrated long ago
In miserable old remorseless times
Of sin and woe.
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12
Therefore does terror haunt thy solitude,Dread Sea! And all its melancholy waves
And mountainous billows, by wild ghosts pursued,
Are wandering graves.
13
Yet 'mid thy moanings multitudinousA silenced song's pathetic echo floats,
Slight but still sweet. What is it moves me thus
In those low notes?
14
It is that in a holier happier timeThe harp of Orpheus lull'd thy lyric shores,
And thou hast listen'd to the rhythmic chime
Of Argo's oars:
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15
It is that Aphrodite's natal mornBeheld her borne upon thine azure breast,
And once thy furrow'd desert, now forlorn,
Was Alcyon's nest.
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