University of Virginia Library

The Sea it is deep, the Sea it is wide;
And it girdeth the earth on every side,
On every side it girds it round,
With an undecaying, mighty bound.

When the Spirit of God came down at first,
Ere the day from primal night had burst,
Before the mountains sprung to birth,
The dark, deep waters veiled the earth.
Like a youthful giant roused from sleep,
At Creation's call uprose the Deep,
And his crested waves tossed up their spray,
As the bonds of his ancient rest gave way;
And a voice went up in that stillness vast,
As if life through a mighty heart had passed.
Oh ancient, wide, unfathomed Sea,
Ere the mountains were, God fashioned thee;
And he gave in thine awful depths to dwell
Things like thyself untameable—
The Dragons old, and the Harpy brood,
Were the lords of thine early solitude!

But night came down on that ancient day,
And that mighty race was swept away;
And death thy fathomless depths passed through;
And thy waters were meted out anew;
And then on thy calmer breast were seen
The verdant crests of islands green;
And mountains in their strength came forth,
And trees and flowers arrayed the earth;
Then the Dolphin first his gambols played,
In his rainbow-tinted scales arrayed;
And down below all fretted and frore,
Was wrought the coral and madrepore;
And among the sea-weeds green and red,
Like flocks of the valley the Turtles fed;
And the sea-flowers budded and open'd wide
In the lustre of waters deepened and dyed;
And the little Nautilus set afloat
On thy bounding tide his pearly boat;
And the Whale sprang forth in his vigorous play;
And shoals of the Flying-fish leaped into day;
And the Pearl-fish under thy world of waves
Laid up his store in the old sea-caves.
Then man came down, and with silent awe
The majesty of waters saw;
And he felt like an humbled thing of fear,
As he stood in that Presence august, severe,
Till he saw how the innocent creatures played
In the billowy depths and were not afraid;
Till he saw how the Nautilus spread his sail,
And caught as it blew the favouring gale;
And great and small through the watery realm
Were steered as it were by a veering helm;
Then his heart grew bold, and his will grew strong,
And he pondered in vigilant thought not long
Ere he fashioned a boat of a hollow tree,
And thus became lord of the mighty Sea.