WHO ever gazed upon the broad sea without emotion; Whether seen in stern majesty, hoary with the tempest, rolling its giant waves upon the rocks, and dashing with resistless fury some gallant bark on an iron-bound coast; or sleeping beneath the silver moon, its broad bosom broken but by a gentle ripple, just enough to reflect a long line of light-a pathof silver upon a pavement of sapphire;who has looked upon-
the sea without feeling that it has power "to stir the soul with thoughts profound"?
Perhaps there is no earthly object-not even the cloud- cleaving mountains of an alpine countr y-so sublime as the sea in its severe and naked simplicity. Standing onsome promontory whence the eye roams far out upon the unbounded ocean, the soul expands, and we conceive a nobler idea of the majesty of that God who "holdeth the waters in the hollow of his hand." He has set bars and doors, and said, "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed."- GOSSZRoll on, thou deep and dark-blue ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain:
Man marks the earth with ruin-his control Stops with the shore; -upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remainA shadow of man"s ravage, save his own, When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,He sinks into thy depths, with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.
The armaments which thunder-strike the walls Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,And monarchs tremble in their capitals;The oak leviathans,
whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war; -These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada"s pride and spoils of Trafalgar.Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee.
Assyria,
Greece, Rome, Carthage
-what are they?
Thy waters wasted them while they were free,And many a tyrant since: their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage: their decayHas dried up realms to deserts. Not so thou: Unchangeable save to thy wild waves" play,Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow- Such as Creation"s dawn beheld, thou rollest now.
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty"s form Glasses itself in tempests; in all time-Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm Icing the pole, or in the torrid climeDark-heaving, -boundless, endless, and sublime- The image of Eternity!
- BYRON
