24
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 decay
Has 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 convuls'd---in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving;---boundless, endless, and sublime,
The image of Eternity---the throne
Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone
Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.
And I have lov'd thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wanton'd with thy breakers---they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea
Made them a terror---'twas a pleasing fear,
For I was as it were a child of thee,
And trusted to thy billows far and near
And laid my hand upon thy mane---as I do here.
