“WHAT vast foundations in the Abyss are there, | |
| As of a former world? Is it not where | |
| Atlantic kings their barbarous pomp displayed; | |
| Sunk into darkness with the realms they swayed, | |
| When towers and temples, through the closing wave, | 5 |
| A glimmering ray of ancient splendor gave?— | |
| And we shall rest with them.—Or are we thrown” | |
| (Each gazed on each, and all exclaimed as one) | |
| “Where things familiar cease and strange begin, | |
| All progress barred to those without, within? | 10 |
| Soon is the doubt resolved. Arise, behold,— | |
| We stop to stir no more,—nor will the tale be told.” | |
| The pilot smote his breast; the watchman cried | |
| “Land!” and his voice in faltering accents died. | |
| At once the fury of the prow was quelled; | 15 |
| And (whence or why from many an age withheld) | |
| Shrieks, not of men, were mingling in the blast; | |
| And arméd shapes of godlike stature passed! | |
| Slowly along the evening-sky they went, | |
| As on the edge of some vast battlement: | 20 |
| Helmet and shield and spear and gonfalon | |
| Streaming a baleful light that was not of the sun! | |
| Long from the stern the great Adventurer gazed | |
| With awe, not fear; then high his hands he raised. | |
| “Thou All-Supreme, in goodness as in power, | 25 |
| Who, from his birth to this eventful hour, | |
| Hast led thy servant over land and sea, | |
| Confessing thee in all, and all in thee, | |
| Oh, still—” He spoke, and lo, the charm accurst | |
| Fled whence it came, and the broad barrier burst! | 30 |
| A vain illusion (such as mocks the eyes | |
| Of fearful men, when mountains round them rise | |
| From less than nothing), nothing now beheld | |
| But scattered sedge,—repelling, and repelled! | |
| And once again that valiant company | 35 |
| Right onward came, ploughing the Unknown Sea. | |
| Already borne beyond the range of thought, | |
| With Light divine and Truth Immortal fraught, | |
| From world to world their steady course they keep, | |
| Swift as the winds along the waters sweep, | 40 |
| Mid the mute nations of the purple deep. | |
| And now the sound of harpy-wings they hear; | |
| Now less and less, as vanishing in fear! | |
| And see, the heavens bow down, the waters rise, | |
| And, rising, shoot in columns to the skies, | 45 |
| That stand,—and still, when they proceed, retire, | |
| As in the Desert burned the sacred fire; | |
| Moving in silent majesty, till night | |
| Descends, and shuts the vision from their sight. | |
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