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| WHENCE 1 with morn’s first blush of light | |
| Com’st thou thus to greet mine eye, | |
| Whilst the furious storm of night | |
| Hovers yet around the sky? | |
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| On the fiery tossing wave, | 5 |
| Calmly cradled dost thou sleep, | |
| When the midnight tempests rave, | |
| Lonely wanderer of the deep? | |
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| Or from some rude isle afar, | |
| Castled ’mid the roaring waste, | 10 |
| With the beams of morning’s star, | |
| On lightning pinion dost thou haste? | |
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| In thy mottled plumage drest, | |
| Light thou skimm’st the ocean o’er, | |
| Sporting round the breaker’s crest | 15 |
| Exulting in the tempest’s roar. | |
| |
| O’er the vast-rolling watry way | |
| While our trembling bark is borne, | |
| And joyful peers the lamp of day, | |
| Lighting up the brow of morn; | 20 |
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| As through yon cloud its struggling beams | |
| Around a partial lustre shed, | |
| And mark at fits with golden gleams | |
| The mountain billow’s surging head; | |
| |
| Whilst the long lines of foamy white, | 25 |
| At distance o’er the expanse so blue, | |
| As domes and castles spiring bright, | |
| Commingling, rise on fancy’s view— | |
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| From wave to wave swift skimming light, | |
| Now near, and now at distance found, | 30 |
| Thy airy form, in ceaseless flight, | |
| Cheers the lone dreariness around. | |
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| Through the vessel’s storm-rent sides, | |
| When the rushing billows rave; | |
| And with fierce gigantic strides, | 35 |
| Death terrific walks the wave, | |
| |
| Still on hovering pinion near, | |
| Thou pursuest thy sportive way; | |
| Still uncheck’d by aught of fear, | |
| Calmly seek’st thy finny prey. | 40 |
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| Far from earth’s remotest trace, | |
| What impels thee thus to roam? | |
| What hast thou to mark the place | |
| When thou seek’st thy distant home? | |
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| Without star or magnet’s aid, | 45 |
| Thou thy faithful course dost keep; | |
| Sportive still, still undismay’d, | |
| Lonely wanderer of the deep! | |
