THE SEA.
��I FAIN would be thy pupil, mighty Sea ! Yet speak thou gently to me, for I fear Thy lifted terror, and I would not learn The lesson that doth make the mariner So deadly pale.
My mother, Earth, doth teach An easy lore. She likes to speak of man. Her level'd mountains and her cultured vales, Town, tower, and temple, and triumphal arch, All speak of man, and moulder while they speak. But of whose architecture and design Tell thine eternal fountains, when they rise In conflict with the clouds, and when they fall ? Of whose strong culture speak thy sunless plants, And groves and gardens, which no mortal eye May see and live ?
What sculptor's art hath wrought Those coral monuments and tombs of pearl, Where sleeps the sea-boy, 'mid a pomp that earth Denies her buried kings ?
Whose science stretched The simplest line to curb thy monstrous tide ?
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