| |
| HAS aught like this descended, since the fountains | |
| Of the Great Deep broke up, in cararacts hurled, | |
| And climbing lofty hills, eternal mountains, | |
| Poured wave on wave above a buried world? | |
| |
| Yon tides are raging, as when storms have striven, | 5 |
| And the vexed seas, awaking from their sleep, | |
| Are rough with foam, and Neptune’s flocks are driven | |
| In myriads o’er the green and azure deep. | |
| |
| Ere yet they fall, mark (where that mighty current | |
| Comes like an army from its mountain home) | 10 |
| How fiercely yon wild steeds amid the torrent, | |
| With their dark flanks, and manes and crests of foam, | |
| |
| Speed to their doom—yet in the awful centre, | |
| Where the wild waves rush madliest to the steep, | |
| Just ere that white unfathomed gulf they enter, | 15 |
| Rear back in horror from the headlong leap, | |
| |
| Then, maddening, plunge—a thousand more succeeding | |
| Sweep onward, troop on troop, again to urge | |
| The same fierce flight, as rapid and unheeding— | |
| Again to pause in terror on the verge. * * * * * | 20 |
| Oft to an eye half closed, as if in solving | |
| Some mighty, mystic problem—half it seems | |
| Like some vast crystal wheel, ever revolving, | |
| Whose motion, earth’s—whose axle, earth’s extremes. | |
| |
| We gaze and gaze, half lost in dreamy pleasure, | 25 |
| On all that slow majestic wave reveals, | |
| While Fancy idly, vainly strives to measure | |
| How vast the cavern which its veil conceals. * * * * * | |
| Whence come ye, O wild waters? by what scenes | |
| Of Majesty and Beauty have ye flowed, | 30 |
| In the wide continent that intervenes, | |
| Ere yet ye mingle in this common road? | |
| |
| The Mountain King, upon his rocky throne, | |
| Laves his broad feet amid your rushing streams, | |
| And many a vale of loveliness unknown | 35 |
| Is softly mirrored in their crystal gleams. | |
| |
| They come—from haunts a thousand leagues away, | |
| From ancient mounds, with deserts wide between, | |
| Cliffs, whose tall summits catch the parting day, | |
| And prairies blooming in eternal green; | 40 |
| |
| Yet the bright valley, and the flower-lit meadow, | |
| And the drear waste of wilderness, all past— | |
| Like that strange Life, of which thou art the shadow, | |
| Must take the inevitable plunge at last. | |
| |
| Whither we know not—but above the wave | 45 |
| A gentle, white-robed spirit sorrowing stands, | |
| Type of the rising from that darker grave, | |
| Which waits the wanderer from Life’s weary lands. | |
| |
| How long these wondrous forms, these colors splendid, | |
| Their glory o’er the wilderness have thrown! | 50 |
| How long that mighty anthem has ascended | |
| To Him who wakened its eternal tone! | |
| |
| That everlasting utterance thou shalt raise, | |
| A thousand ages ended, still the same, | |
| When this poor heart, that fain would add its praise, | 55 |
| Has mouldered to the nothing whence it came; | |
| |
| When the white dwellings of man’s busy brood, | |
| Now reared in myriads o’er the peopled plain, | |
| Like snows have vanished, and the ancient wood | |
| Shall echo to the eagle’s shriek again. | 60 |
| |
| And all the restless crowds that now rejoice, | |
| And toil and traffic, in their eager moods, | |
| Shall pass,—and nothing save thine awful voice | |
| Shall break the hush of these vast solitudes. | |
| |
