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| O THOU vast Ocean! ever-sounding Sea! | |
| Thou symbol of a drear immensity! | |
| Thou thing that windest round the solid world | |
| Like a huge animal, which, downward hurled | |
| From the black clouds, lies weltering and alone, | 5 |
| Lashing and writhing till its strength be gone! | |
| Thy voice is like the thunder, and thy sleep | |
| Is as a giant’s slumber, loud and deep. | |
| Thou speakest in the east and in the west | |
| At once, and on thy heavily laden breast | 10 |
| Fleets come and go, and shapes that have no life | |
| Or motion, yet are moved and meet in strife. | |
| The earth has naught of this: no chance or change | |
| Ruffles its surface, and no spirits dare | |
| Give answer to the tempest-wakened air; | 15 |
| But o’er its wastes the weakly tenants range | |
| At will, and wound its bosom as they go: | |
| Ever the same, it hath no ebb, no flow: | |
| But in their stated rounds the seasons come, | |
| And pass like visions to their wonted home; | 20 |
| And come again, and vanish; the young Spring | |
| Looks ever bright with leaves and blossoming; | |
| And Winter always winds his sullen horn, | |
| When the wild Autumn, with a look forlorn, | |
| Dies in his stormy manhood; and the skies | 25 |
| Weep, and flowers sicken, when the summer flies. | |
| O, wonderful thou art, great element, | |
| And fearful in thy spleeny humors bent, | |
| And lovely in repose! thy summer form | |
| Is beautiful, and when thy silver waves | 30 |
| Make music in earth’s dark and winding caves, | |
| I love to wander on thy pebbled beach, | |
| Marking the sunlight at the evening hour, | |
| And hearken to the thoughts thy waters teach,— | |
| Eternity—Eternity—and Power. | 35 |
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