University of Virginia Library

THE AIR—THE EARTH—THE OCEAN.

And moves it not the Deep? whether his pow'r,
Peaceably ruling without pomp, call up
To sunshine, and the breath of upper air,
The viewless generations, age on age,
That 'neath unfathom'd waves slow-labouring lift
Their giant masonry, and gem wide seas
With coral isles:—that Man, where'er dispers'd,
May find fit rest, and life's link'd chain extend
Far as the free wave wanders:—or, in might
Descending, from the bosom of th' abyss
Bid the dry land appear. Such, as of late,
They view'd off Santorin, who, at gray dawn,
Saw but the still wave smiling, and light mists
That play'd on its blue bosom. Fearful sights
Succeeded; for ere yet swift eve declined,
Untimely darkness sat upon the sea,
While ocean thunder'd 'mid the storm of waves,
From whose wide-smoking bosom floods of fire
Gush'd forth, and rocks that, hurtling in 'mid air,
Blaz'd as they flew; and from the rent abyss
An isle uprose, with cliff, and spacious plain:
And from afar its promontory tow'r'd
A mount of living flames: anon to bear
Gay verdure, and to listen to the voice
Of rills that down cool glens meand'ring glide.
The vital Word went forth: “Be fruitful, Seas!
“Bring forth abundantly.”—Earth! on thy face
Dwells gladness: and thy green lap gifts with food
Fair creatures in their kind: but 'neath thy turf
Lies the dark realm untenanted. Thou, Deep!
Teem'st animate throughout, sea beneath sea
Continuous birth. Enormous forms uncouth
Heave on the main, and upward gazing, spout
The briny fount. But who hath told the race
Under the green wave gliding? Part, below,
Haunt: other part, at season due, move forth,
Not without charge shaping their yearly course,
To feed earth's barren regions. Witness, ye,
On Drontheim's pine-crown'd steeps! and that bold race
In bosom of the melancholy main:
Rude natives of the rocks, whose bleak heights gaze
On Caledonia's howling head-lands wild:
The sterile residence, where no hill top
Waves verdure—ye, rejoice! No longer chase
On cliffs, whose dizzy brows o'erarch the flood,
The fierce and clamorous sea-fowl: tempt no more
Dark caves where wild kinds gender. Golden suns
Invite: 'tis peace, and silence on the sea.
The ice-chain of the northern Deep gives way;
Forth burst the nations. Ocean gleams afar:
The many-colour'd main has lost its hue
Cerulean. Where the vast migration heaves,
Wing'd flights o'erhang their banquet, vast of size
Beneath, on either flank, the swoln whale preys
Insatiate: nathless, far and wide, and deep,
Column on column, furrowing up the flood,
Rolls onward, and each isle and peopled rock
Rings like a hamlet feast at harvest home.
Soother of Seasons! World of Waters! hail!
The Pow'r, whose wisdom wheels the globe athwart
The orb of light, and laid each adverse pole
On everlasting ice, bad roll thy strength,
Potent alike, or from swart realms to sweep
Thick sunbeams off, or, forceful to repel
Stern Winter, as he stands upon the edge
Of the firm-frozen Arctic.—Wherefore rests
Earth rooted 'mid thy billows? Hark! the voice
Of Nature, calling on the Lord of life
With thy nutritious spirit to sustain
Creation. And the Lord of life looks down,
And bids each searching sunbeam, and each wind
Whose path is on the restless Deep, require
His treasures stor'd in thy capacious womb,
To gladden the green herb. Hence, tempests, toss
Thy billows: or, smooth seas, of winds unvex'd,
That seem to sleep, wave after wave, ascend,
And silently along the blue serene
Float on the painted clouds, that deck the pomp
Of summer. And the golden-tressed hours
That tend the car of day, gird up in light
Thy viewless waters: and, in turn, the train
That stol'd in matron weeds, accompany
Eve's shadowy course, with dewy finger chill
Unloose the burden, and pour stilly down
On hill and vale large dew-drops, that all night
Lay thick upon the branch, and gem at dawn
With pearls the twinkling green-sward. And who comes
In thunder, and thick canopy of clouds,
Borne on the tempest's outstretch'd wings, and pours
On earth thy rich abundance, making air
Another ocean? Thou com'st down in strength,
Jehovah! o'er the splendour of noon-day,
When freshness fails the mead, thy glory, girt
With thunder, and in canopy of clouds
Pavilion'd: and the winds, that bear thee on,
Shake from their sounding pennons, far and wide,
The rush of mighty waters. These have charge
To pierce beneath earth's grassy robe, and search
The veins that intersect her ribs of rock,
The crude mine ripening: some, therein to place,
As in a thick-arch'd treasury, richest grains
Borne with the stream; or lodge the embryon ores,
That in their lapse pass'd viewless: thus, her depths
In many a cavernous womb, and veiny cleft,
Seemingly work of violence, are stor'd
With inexhaustible wealth: her palaces,
Where some have feign'd gnomes, and swart demon, girt
With dragon guard, brood o'er their unsunn'd heaps,
Gleam diamond-lustred.—Hence, her roofs emboss'd
With gems and stalactites, whose loitering drops
Grow rigid in their fall, and from beneath
Sparring the crystal pavement rise, each one
A brilliant coruscation. Some, ere sunk
Beneath the soil, explore the tainted wreck
Of forms organic once, in sad decay
Now wasting slow. The pure stream, as it parts
Their elements, methinks, with voice of pow'r
Exclaims—“Why slumber ye, who, lately adorn'd
“With form, and hue, and vigour, in gay bloom
“Perfum'd the spring: or on the mountain brows,
“Like those of Libanon, when roar'd the gale,
“Spread your broad arms indignant: or, endow'd
“With the celestial Spirit, dwelt on God,
“Creator, Judge, and Saviour.—Sleep no more
“A burden, and a pest. I bear you down,
“To rise a new creation.”—Thus ordain'd,
To Nature, and her many seeded womb,
The vital spirit of the water bears
Fertility. The new germ wakes, unfolds,
And from its brow, aspirant, proudly shakes
Its cradling earth-tomb off. Meantime, the dews
Descend: and every fibre, myriad-mouth'd,
Rests never from the moisten'd mould to draw
New life: and, at each genial season, quaff
Afresh nectareous stores that autumn laid
In root, and grassy joint, and knotted stem,
Food for the vernal offspring: on they wind
Elaborate, thro' many a branching vein,
And many a mazy vessel, opening now,
Now closing, wreath on wreath their spiral rings
To woo, and urge them upwards. The green leaf
Expands, and drinks the light, and at each pore
That opens on the sun, the currents change
Their nature: part, the liquid form put off,
Goes forth an unseen element, the waste
Of vital air restoring: part, absorb'd,
Flows, circling, down, richly endow'd, to form
Fruits, and fresh growth of harvests, precious gums
Lenient of pain: all that the summer bee
Steals, labouring into liquid gold, and all
That Mecca gathers, when the wounded rind
Weeps, and each tear a sov'reign balm distils—
These kindly flow. But where th' immingling veins
Join currents, Lord of Nature, I behold
Thy plastic Spirit provident. The sap
Assumes corporeal substance, and while man,
Race after race, sinks, mouldering into dust,
Grows, gathering up its hardihood; now rears
'Mid the wild woods some beech, that far outspreads
O'er the dark lake its night of leaves: or pine
Norwegian, on high mountain ridge, of pow'r
To stay the expanded main-sail labouring full
Before the gale: or ever-during growth
Of oak unyielding: such as Britain boasts
In many a native forest. Witness, thou,
Far-fam'd in song, hoar Silcar! whose high brow
O'er Need-wood shades tow'rs eminent: and thou,
Renown of Yardley! to whose honour'd age
A Bard, whose lyre was tun'd with angel chords,
Disdain'd not homage: and thy boast, unsung,
Hainault! not seldom underneath whose gloom
I muse, and lonely meditate the lay,
Still Peace and inspiration breathing round.
The years of old hang graceful on thy boughs.
Yon gray-hair'd woodman, native of these wilds,
Who to his list'ning grandson tells the tale
His grandsires told, delivers down of thee
Traditionary records, as of one
Whose birth outrun their date. They too, like me,
Beheld with fond regret thy gray-top sere
Bare to each gale, the roots that prop thy bulk
Expos'd, and heaving 'bove the wintry floods
Their gnarl'd and wreathed strength: thy rugged trunk,
Like some vast cave by storm-tost ocean arch'd,
Deep hollow'd, and the outstretch of thy arms
Gigantic, measuring far and wide the glade.