With arrowy glimpses traversing the shade.
Night's train, as they had kindled one by one,
Now one by one withdrew, reversing order,
Where those that came the latest, earliest went :
Day rose triumphant, and again to me
Sky, sun, and sea were all the universe;
But ah! the glory had departed, and I long'd
For some untried vicissitude: -it came.

A breeze sprang up, and with careering wing Play'd like an unseen being on the water. Slowly from slumber woke the unwilling main, Curling and murmuring, till the infant waves Leap'd on his lap, and laugh'd in air and sunshine: Then all was bright and beautiful emotion, And sweet accordance of susurrant sounds, I felt the gay delirium of the scene;

I felt the breeze and billow chase each other,

Like bounding pulses in my human veins:
For, though impassive to the elements,
The form I wore was exquisitely tuned

To Nature's sympathies; joy, fear, hope, sorrow
(As though I yet were in the body) moved,
Elated, shook, or tranquillized my

soul.

Above the array of lightnings, like the swords
Of cherubim, wide brandish'd, to repel
Aggression from heaven's gates; their flaming strokes
Quench'd momentarily in the vast abyss.

The voice of Him who walks upon the wind,
And sets his throne upon the floods, rebuked
The headlong tempest in its mid-career,
And turn'd its horrors to magnificence.

The evening sun broke through the embattled clouds,
And threw round sky and sea, as by enchantment,
A radiant girdle, binding them to peace,
In the full rainbow's harmony of beams;
No brilliant fragment, but one sevenfold circle,
That spann'd the horizon, meted out the heavens,
And underarch'd the ocean. 'T was a scene,
That left itself for ever on my mind.

Night, silent, cool, transparent, crown'd the day; The sky receded further into space,

The stars came lower down to meet the eye,
Till the whole hemisphere, alive with light,
Twinkled from east to west by one consent.
The constellations round the arctic pole,
That never set to us, here scarcely rose,

Once, at high noon, amidst a sultry calm, Looking around for comfort, I descried, Far on the green horizon's utmost verge, A wreath of cloud; to me a glad discovery, For each new image sprang a new idea, The germ of thoughts to come, that could not die.

The little vapour rapidly expanded,

Lowering and thickening till it hid the sun,
And threw a starless night upon the sea.
Eagerly, tremblingly, I watch'd the end.

Faint gleam'd the lightning, follow'd by no peal;
Dreary and hollow moans foretold a gale;
Nor long the issue tarried; then the wind,
Unprison'd, blew its trumpet loud and shrill;
Out flash'd the lightnings gloriously; the rain
Came down like music, and the full-toned thunder
Roll'd in grand harmony throughout high heaven:
Till ocean, breaking from his black supineness,
Drown'd in his own stupendous uproar all
The voices of the storm beside; meanwhile
A war of mountains raged upon his surface;
Mountains each other swallowing, and again
New Alps and Andes, from unfathom'd valleys
Upstarting, join'd the battle; like those sons
Of earth,-giants, rebounding as new-born
From every fall on their unwearied mother.
I glow'd with all the rapture of the strife:
Beneath was one wild whirl of foaming surges;

Pursued the Pleiads; Sirius, with his keen,
Quick scintillations, in the zenith reign'd.
The south unveil'd its glories;-there, the Wolf,
With eyes of lightning, watch'd the Centaur's spear;
Through the clear hyaline, the Ship of Heaven
Came sailing from eternity; the Dove,
On silver pinions, wing'd her peaceful way;
There, at the footstool of Jehovah's throne,
The Altar, kindled from His
blazed;
presence,
There, too, all else excelling, meekly shone
The Cross, the symbol of redeeming love:
The Heavens declared the glory of the Lord,
The firmament display'd his handy-work.

With scarce inferior lustre gleam'd the sea,
Whose waves were spangled with phosphoric fire,
As though the lightnings there had spent their shafts,
And left the fragments glittering on the field.

CANTO II.

And moved at will along the yielding water.
The native pilot of this little bark
Put out a tier of oars on either side,
Spread to the wafting breeze a two-fold sail,
And mounted up and glided down the billow
In happy freedom, pleased to feel the air,
And wander in the luxury of light.
Worth all the dead creation, in that hour,
To me appear'd this lonely Nautilus,
My fellow-being, like myself alive.
Entranced in contemplation vague yet sweet,
I watch'd its vagrant course and rippling wake,
Till I forgot the sun amidst the heavens.

It closed, sunk, dwindled to a point, then nothing;
While the last bubble crown'd the dimpling eddy,
Through which mine eye still giddily pursued it,
A joyous creature vaulted through the air,-
The aspiring fish that fain would be a bird,
On long light wings, that flung a diamond shower
Of dew-drops round its evanescent form,
Sprang into light, and instantly descended.
Ere I could greet the stranger as a friend,
Or mourn his quick departure,-on the surge,
A shoal of Dolphins, tumbling in wild glee,
Glow'd with such orient tints, they might have been
The rainbow's offspring, when it met the ocean
In that resplendent vision I had seen.
While yet in ecstasy I hung o'er these,
With every motion pouring out fresh beauties,
As though the conscious colours came and went
At pleasure, glorying in their subtle changes,
Enormous o'er the flood, Leviathan

Look'd forth, and from his roaring nostrils sent
Two fountains to the sky, then plunged amain
In headlong pastime through the closing gulf.

These were but preludes to the revelry
That reign'd at sunset: then the deep let loose
Its blithe adventurers to sport at large,
As kindly instinct taught them; buoyant shells,
On stormless voyages, in fleets or single,
Wherried their tiny mariners; aloof,
On wing-like fins, in bow-and-arrow figures,
The flying fishes darted to and fro;

While spouting Whales projected wat'ry columns,
That turned to arches at their height, and seem'd
The skeletons of crystal palaces,

Built on the blue expanse, then perishing,
Frail as the element which they were made of:
Dolphins, in gambols, lent the lucid brine
Hues richer than the canopy of
That overhung the scene with gorgeous clouds,
Decaying into gloom more beautiful

eve,

Than the sun's golden liveries which they lost:
Till light that hides, and darkness that reveals
The stars,-exchanging guard, like sentinels
Of day and night,-transform'd the face of nature:
Above was wakefulness, silence around,
Beneath, repose,-repose that reach'd even me.
Power, will, sensation, memory, fail'd in turn;
My very essence seem'd to pass away,
Like a thin cloud that melts across the moon,
Lost in the blue immensity of heaven.

LIFE'S intermitting pulse again went on:
I woke amidst the beauty of a morn,
That shone as bright within me as around.
The presence-chamber of the soul was full
Of flitting images and rapturous thoughts;
For eye and mind were open'd to explore
The secrets of the abyss erewhile conceal'd.
The floor of ocean, never trod by man,

Was visible to me as heaven's round roof,
Which man hath never touch'd; the multitude

Of living things, in that new hemisphere,

Gleam'd out of darkness, like the stars at midnight, When moon nor clouds, with light or shade, obscure them.

For, as in hollows of the tide-worn reef,
Left at low water glistening in the sun,
Pellucid pools and rocks in miniature,
With their small fry of fishes, crusted shells,
Rich mosses, tree-like sea-weed, sparkling pebbles,
Enchant the eye, and tempt the eager hand

To violate the fairy paradise,

-So to my view the deep disclosed its wonders.

In the free element beneath me swam,

Flounder'd, and dived, in play, in chase, in battle,
Fishes of every colour, form, and kind,
(Strange forms, resplendent colours, kinds unnum-
ber'd),

Which language cannot paint, and mariner
Hath never seen; from dread Leviathan
To insect-millions peopling every wave;
And nameless tribes, half-plant, half-animal,
Rooted and slumbering through a dream of life.
The livelier inmates to the surface. sprang,
To taste the freshness of heaven's breath, and feel
That light is pleasant, and the sunbeam warm.
Most in the middle region sought their prey,
Safety, or pastime; solitary some,
And some in pairs affectionately join'd;
Others in shoals immense, like floating islands,
Led by mysterious instinct through that waste
And trackless region, though on every side
Assaulted by voracious enemies,

-Whales, sharks, and monsters, arm'd in front or jaw,
With swords, saws, spiral horns, or hooked fangs.
While ravening Death of slaughter ne'er grew weary,
Life multiplied the immortal meal as fast.
War, reckless, universal war, prevail'd;
All were devourers, all in turn devour'd;
Yet every unit in the uncounted sum
Of victims had its share of bliss, its pang,
And but a pang, of dissolution; each
Was happy till its moment came, and then
Its first, last suffering, unforeseen, unfear'd,
Closed, with one struggle, pain and life for ever.
So, He ordain'd, whose way is in the sea,
His path amidst great waters, and his steps
Unknown;-whose judgments are a mighty deep,
Where plummet of Archangel's intellect
Could never yet find soundings, but from age
To age let down, drawn up, then thrown again,
With lengthen'd line and added weight, still fails;
And still the cry in Heaven is, O the depth!

.

Thus, while bewilder'd with delight I gazed

On life in every shape it here assumed,
Congenial feeling made me follow it,
And try to be whatever I beheld:

By mental transmigration thus I pass'd
Through many a body, and in each assay'd

New instincts, powers, enjoyments, death itself;
Till, weary with the fanciful pursuit,

I started from that idle reverie.

Then grew my heart more desolate than ever;
Here had I found the beings which I sought,
-Beings for whom the universe was made,
Yet none of kindred with myself. In vain

I strove to waken sympathy in breasts
Cold as the element in which they moved,
And inaccessible to fellowship

With me, as sun and stars, as winds and vapours:
Sense had they, but no more; mind was not there.
They roam'd, they fed, they slept; they died, and left
Race after race, to roam, feed, sleep, then die,
And leave their like through endless generation;
-Incessant change of actors, none of scene,
Through all that boundless theatre of strife!
Shrinking into myself again, I cried,
In bitter disappointment,- Is this all?»

I sent a glance at random from the cloud,

In which I then lay floating through mid-heaven,
To ocean's innermost recess;-when lo!
Another seal of Nature's book was open'd,
Which held transported thought so deep entranced,
That Time, though borne through mightiest revolutions,
Seem'd, like the earth in motion, to stand still.
The works of ages grew beneath mine

As rapid intellect calls up events,

eye;

Not such the spectacle I now survey'd :

No broken hearts lay here; no aching heads,

For whose vast schemes the world was once too small,
And life too short, in Death's dark lap found rest
Beneath the unresting wave:-but skeletons

Of Whales and Krakens here and there were scatter'd,
The prey when dead of tribes, their prey when living:
And, seen by glimpses, but awakening thoughts
Too sad for utterance,-relics huge and strange
Of the old world that perish'd by the flood,
Kept under chains of darkness till the judgment.
-Save these, lay ocean's bed, as from the hand
Of its Creator, hollow'd and prepared
For his unfathomable counsels there,
To work slow miracles of
power divine.
From century to century,-nor less
Incomprehensible than heaven and earth
Form'd in six days by His commanding word.
With God a thousand years are as one day;
lle in one day can sum a thousand years:
All acts with Him are equal; for no more
It costs Omnipotence to build a world,
And set a sun amidst the firmament,
Than mould a dew-drop, and light up its

gem.

This was the landscape stretch'd beneath the flood: Rocks, branching out like chains of Alpine mountains;

Gulfs intervening, sandy wildernesses,

Forests of growth enormous, caverns, shoals;

Fountains upspringing, hot and cold, and fresh

And bitter, as on land; volcanic fires

Fiercely out-flashing from earth's central heart,
Nor soon extinguish'd by the rush of waters
Down the rent crater to the unknown abyss

That, in a little page of memory,

-a nation's fortunes

An empire's annals lie,

Pass in review, as motes through sunbeams pass,
Glistening and vanishing in quick succession,
Yet each distinct as though there were but one;
-So thrice a thousand years, with all their issues,
Hurried before me, through a gleam of Time,
Between the clouds of two eternities,-

That whence they came, and that to which they tended.

Immeasurable continents beneath

The expanse of animated waters lay,

Not strown, -as I have since discern'd the tracks
Of voyagers,—with shipwrecks and their spoils,
The wealth of merchants, the artillery
Of war, the chains of captives, and the gems,
That glow'd upon the brow of beauty; crowns
Of monarchs, swords of heroes, anchors lost,
That never had let go their hold in storms;
Helms, sunk in port, that steer'd adventurous barks
Round the wide world; bones of dead men, that made
A hidden Golgotha where they had fallen,
Unseen, unsepulchred, but not unwept
By lover, friend, relation, far away,

Long waiting their return to home and country,
And going down into their fathers' graves
With their grey hairs or youthful locks in sorrow,
To meet no more till seas give up their dead:
Some too-ay thousands-whom none living mourn'd,
None miss'd,-waifs in the universe, the last
Lorn links of kindred chains for ever sunder'd.

Her deeds from every eye except her Maker's : -Such were the scenes which ocean open'd to me; Mysterious regions, the recluse abode

Of unapproachable inhabitants,

That dwelt in everlasting darkness there.
Unheard by them the roaring of the wind,
The elastic motion of the wave unfelt;
Nor yet unuseful, as my song shall show.
Still life was theirs, well pleasing to themselves,

Here, on a stony eminence, that stood,
Girt with inferior ridges, at the point,
Where light and darkness meet in spectral gloom,
Midway between the height and depth of ocean,
I mark'd a whirlpool in perpetual play,
As though the mountain were itself alive,
And catching prey on every side, with feelers
Countless as sunbeams, slight as gossamer :
Ere long transfigured, each fine film became
An independent creature, self-employ'd,
Yet but an agent in one common work,
The sum of all their individual labours.
Shapeless they seem'd, but endless shapes assumed;
Elongated like worms, they writhed and shrunk
Their tortuous bodies to grotesque dimensions;
Compress'd like wedges, radiated like stars,
Branching like sea-weed, whirl'd in dazzling rings;
Subtle and variable as flickering flames,
Sight could not trace their evanescent changes,
Nor comprehend their motions, till minute

And curious observation caught the clew
To this live labyrinth,-where every one,
By instinct taught, perform'd its little task;
-To build its dwelling and its sepulchre,
From its own essence exquisitely modell'd;
There breed, and die, and leave a progeny,
Still multiplied beyond the reach of numbers,
To frame new cells and tombs; then breed and die
As all their ancestors had done, and rest,
Hermetically seal'd, each in its shrine,
A statue in this temple of oblivion!
Millions of millions thus, from age to age,
With simplest skill, and toil unweariable,
No moment and no movement unimproved,
Laid line on line, on terrace terrace spread,
To swell the heightening, brightening gradual mound,
By marvellous structure climbing tow'rds the day.
Each wrought alone, yet all together, wrought,
Unconscious, not unworthy, instruments,
By which a hand invisible was rearing
A new creation in the secret deep.

Atom by atom thus the burthen grew,
Even like an infant in the womb, till Time
Deliver'd ocean of that monstrous birth,
-A coral island, stretching east and west,
In God's own language to its parent saying,
. Thus far, nor farther, shalt thou go; and here
Shall thy proud waves be stay'd :-A point at first
It peer'd above those waves; a point so small,
I just perceived it, fix'd where all was floating;
And when a bubble cross'd it, the blue film
Expanded like a sky above the speck;

That speck became a hand-breadth; day and night
It spread, accumulated, and ere long
Presented to my view a dazzling plain,
White as the moon amid the sapphire sea;
Bare at low water, and as still as death,

But when the tide came gurgling o'er the surface,
'T was like a resurrection of the dead:
From graves innumerable, punctures fine
In the close coral, capillary swarms
Of reptiles, horrent as Medusa's snakes,
Cover'd the bald-pate reef; then all was life,
And indefatigable industry;

The artizans were twisting to and fro,
In idle-seeming convolutions; yet
They never vanish'd with the ebbing surge,
Till pellicle on pellicle, and layer

On layer, was added to the growing mass.

Ere long the reef o'ertopt the spring-flood's height, And mock'd the billows when they leapt upon it, Unable to maintain their slippery hold,

And falling down in foam-wreaths round its verge.
Steep were the flanks, with precipices sharp,
Descending to their base in ocean-gloom.
Chasms few, and narrow, and irregular,
Form'd harbours, safe at once and perilous,-
Safe for defence, but perilous to enter.

A sea-lake shone amidst the fossil isle,
Reflecting in a ring its cliffs and caverns,
With heaven itself seen like a lake below.

Compared with this amazing edifice, Raised by the weakest creatures in existence, What are the works of intellectual man? Towers, temples, palaces, and sepulchres; Ideal images in sculptured forms,

Thoughts hewn in columns, or in domes expanded, Fancies through every maze of beauty shown; Pride, gratitude, affection turn'd to marble,

In honour of the living or the dead;

:

What are they?-fine-wrought miniatures of art,
Too exquisite to bear the weight of dew,
Which every morn lets fall in pearls upon them,
Till all their sinks down in mouldering relics,
pomp
Yet in their ruin lovelier than their prime!
-Dust in the balance, atoms in the gale,
Compared with these achievements in the deep,
Were all the monuments of olden time,
In days when there were giants on the earth.
-Babel's stupendous folly, though it aim'd
To scale heaven's battlements, was but a toy,
The plaything of the world in infancy:
The ramparts, towers, and gates of Babylon,
Built for eternity,-though, where they stood,
Ruin itself stands still for lack of work,
And Desolation keeps unbroken sabbath ;-
Great Babylon, in its full moon of empire,
Even when its head of gold» was smitten off,
And from a monarch changed into a brute;-
Great Babylon was like a wreath of sand,
Left by one tide, and cancell'd by the next:-
Egypt's dread wonders, still defying Time,
Where cities have been crumbled into sand,
Scatter'd by winds beyond the Libyan desert,
Or melted down into the mud of Nile,
And cast in tillage o'er the corn-sown fields,
Where Memphis flourish'd, and the Pharaohs reign'd;-
Egypt's grey piles of hieroglyphic grandeur,
That have survived the language which they speak,
Preserving its dead emblems to the eye,

Yet hiding from the mind what these reveal;
-Her pyramids would be mere pinnacles,
Her giant statues, wrought from rocks of granite,
But puny ornaments for such a pile
As this stupendous mound of catacombs,
Fill'd with dry mummies of the builder-worms.

Thus far, with undiverted thought, and eye Intensely fix'd on ocean's concave mirror, I watch'd the process to its finishing stroke: Then starting suddenly, as from a trance, Once more to look upon the blessed sun, And breathe the gladdening influence of the wind, Darkness fell on me; giddily my brain Whirl'd like a torch of fire that seems a circle,

And soon to me the universe was nothing.

CANTO III.

NINE times the age of man that coral reef
Had bleach'd beneath the torrid noon, and borne
The thunder of a thousand hurricanes,
Raised by the jealous ocean, to repel

That strange encroachment on his old domain.
His rage was impotent; his wrath fulfill'd
The counsels of eternal Providence,
And 'stablish'd what he strove to overturn:
For every tempest threw fresh wrecks upon it;
Sand from the shoals, exuviæ from the deep,
Fragments of shells, dead sloughs, sea-mousters' bones,
Whales stranded in the shallows, hideous weeds
Hurl'd out of darkness by the uprooting surges;
These, with unutterable relics more,

Heap'd the rough surface, till the various mass,
By Nature's chemistry combined and purged,
Had buried the bare rock in crumbling mould,
Not unproductive, but from time to time
Impregnated with seeds of plants, and rife
With embryo animals, or torpid forms

Of reptiles, shrouded in the clefts of trees,
From distant lands, with branches, foliage, fruit,
Pluck'd and wafted hither by the flood.
up

Death's spoils, and life's hid treasures, thus enrich'd
And colonized the soil; no particle

Of meanest substance but in course was turn'd
To solid use or noble ornament.

All seasons were propitious; every wind
From the hot Siroc to the wet Monsoon,

Temper'd the crude materials; while heaven's dew,
Fell on the sterile wilderness as sweetly

As though it were a garden of the Lord;
Nor fell in vain; each drop had its commission,
And did its duty, known to Him who sent it,

Such time had past, such changes had transfigured

The aspect of that solitary isle,
When I again in spirit, as before,

Assumed mute watch above it. Slender blades

Of grass were shooting through the dark brown earth,
Like rays of light, transparent in the sun,
Or after showers with liquid gems illumined;
Fountains through filtering sluices sallied forth,
And led fertility where'er they turn'd;

Green herbage graced their banks, resplendent flowers
Unlock'd their treasures, and let flow their fragrance.
Then insect legions, prank'd with gaudiest hues,
Pearl, gold, and purple, swarm'd into existence;
Minute and marvellous creations these!
Infinite multitudes on every leaf,

In every drop, by me discern'd at pleasure,
Were yet too fine for unenlighten'd eye,
-Like stars, whose beams have never reach'd our world,
Though science meets them midway in the heaven
With prying optics, weighs them in her scale,
Measures their orbs, and calculates their courses:--
Some barely visible, some proudly shone,
Like living jewels; some grotesque, uncouth,
And hideous,-giants of a race of pigmies;
These burrow'd in the ground, and fed on garbage,
Those lived deliciously on honey-dews,
And dwelt in palaces of blossom'd bells;
Millions on millions, wing'd, and plumed in front,
And arm'd with stings for vengeance or assault,

Fill'd the dim atmosphere with hum and hurry;
Children of light, and air, and fire they seem'd,
Their lives all ecstasy and quick cross motion.
Thus throve this embryo universe, where all
That was to be was unbegun, or now

Beginning; every day, hour, instant brought
Its novelty, though how or whence I knew not;
Less than omniscience could not comprehend
The causes of effects that seem'd spontaneous,
And sprang in infinite succession, link'd
With kindred issues infinite as they,
For which almighty skill had laid the train
Even in the elements of chaos,-whence
The unravelling clew not for a moment lost
Hold of the silent hand that drew it out.
Thus He who makes and peoples worlds still works
In secrecy, behind a veil of light;
Yet through that hiding of his power,
Of glory break as strike presumption blind,
But humble and exalt the humbled soul,
Whose faith the things invisible discerns,
And God informing, guiding, ruling all :-
He speaks, 't is done; commands, and it stands fast.
He calls an island from the deep,-it comes;
Ordains it culture,-soil and seed are there;
Appoints inhabitants,-from climes unknown,
By undiscoverable paths, they flock
Thither;-like passage-birds to us in spring;
They were not yesterday,—and, lo! to-day
They are, but what keen eye beheld them coming?

Here was the infancy of life, the age

such glimpses

Of gold in that green isle, itself new-born,
And all upon it in the prime of being,
Love, hope, and promise; 't was in miniature

A world unsoil'd by sin; a Paradise

Where Death had not yet enter'd; Bliss had newly
Alighted, and shut close his rainbow wings,
To rest at ease, nor dread intruding ill.
Plants of superior growth now sprang apace,
With moon-like blossoms crown'd, or starry glories;
Light flexile shrubs among the greenwood play'd
Fantastic freaks,-they crept, they climb'd, they budded,
And hung their flowers and berries in the sun;
As the breeze taught, they danced, they sung, they twined
Their sprays in bowers, or spread the ground with net-
work.

Through thy slow lapse of undivided time,
Silently rising from their buried germs,
Trees lifted to the skies their stately heads,
Tufted with verdure, like depending plumage,
O'er stems unknotted, waving to the wind:
Of these in graceful form, and simple beauty,
The fruitful cocoa and the fragrant palm
Excell'd the wilding daughters of the wood,
That stretch'd unwieldy their enormous arms,
Clad with luxuriant foliage, from the trunk,
Like the old eagle, feather'd to the heel;
While every fibre, from the lowest root
To the last leaf upon the topmost twig,
Was held by common sympathy, diffusing
Through all the complex frame unconscious life.
Such was the locust with his hydra boughs,
A hundred heads on one stupendous trunk;
And such the mangrove, which, at full-moon flood,
Appear'd itself a wood upon the waters,