The Fall of the Leaf :: :: University of Virginia Library

Thee, too, the sea-worn Mariner adores;
When, near the point of Horn's tempestuous cape,
Or 'mid th' enormous piles of wandering ice,
Which, 'neath the northern circle, bound the rocks
Of Nova Zembla, hung with hoary threads,
Form'd like the tissue of a spider's web,
Or clad in one continual robe of snow.
Or when wide tost on Biscay's sounding bay,
Now high in air, and now emerged below
Deep in its fathomless abyss, each wave

Towers like a mountain o'er the labouring bark;
Scattering wild, concave, surges to the sky;
And forming rainbows in thy sphere of light.

Or, when benighted on a foreign land,
Desert and waste, where never rainbow yet
Circled the wide horizon; where no bee
E'er sipp'd rich nectar from the blooming cup,
Perfum'd from heav'n; the weary traveller roves,
Lost in the frightful darkness. Round he turns
His visual organ:—all is dark:—profound
The silent concave!—Deep his withering soul
Sinks with his frame;—while pitiless despair
Sits like a nightmare on his feverish brain.
Soon in the horizon of the vaulted east,
Remote and shrouded with the dews of heaven,
In awful state, magnificent appears
Thy matchless form!—The wanderer hails the sight:
His frame, so lately sinking, throbs with hope;
Life quickens fresh;—his grateful bosom glows;
And his whole soul with holy transport fills.