Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Oceanica: Vol. XXXI. 1876–79.
The Ocean
By Bryan Waller Procter (1787–1874)O
Thou symbol of a drear immensity!
Thou thing that windest round the solid world
Like a huge animal, which, downward hurled
From the black clouds, lies weltering and alone,
Lashing and writhing till its strength be gone!
Thy voice is like the thunder, and thy sleep
Is as a giant’s slumber, loud and deep.
Thou speakest in the east and in the west
At once, and on thy heavy-laden breast
Fleets come and go, and things that have no life
Or motion, yet are moved and met in strife.
Ruffles its surface, and no spirits dare
Give answer to the tempest-wakened air;
But o’er its wastes the weakly tenants range
At will, and wound its bosom as they go:
Ever the same, it hath no ebb, no flow;
But in their stated rounds the seasons come,
And pass like visions to their viewless home,
And come again, and vanish: the young Spring
Looks ever bright with leaves and blossoming;
And Winter always winds his sullen horn,
When the wild Autumn, with a look forlorn
Dies in his strong manhood; and the skies
Weep, and flowers sicken, when the Summer flies.
A will, a voice, and in thy wrathful hour,
When thou dost lift thine anger to the clouds,
A fearful and magnificent beauty shrouds
Thy broad green forehead. If thy waves be driven
Backward and forward by the shifting wind,
How quickly dost thou thy great strength unbind,
And stretch thine arms, and war at once with Heaven!
On thee no record ever lived again
To meet the hand that writ it; line nor lead
Hath ever fathomed thy profoundest deeps,
Where haply the huge monster swells and sleeps,
King of his watery limit, who, ’t is said,
Can move the mighty ocean into storm,—
O, wonderful thou art, great element,
And fearful in thy spleeny humors bent,
And lovely in repose; thy summer form
Is beautiful, and when thy silver waves
Make music in earth’s dark and winding caves,
I love to wander on thy pebbled beach,
Marking the sunlight at the evening hour,
And hearken to the thoughts thy waters teach,—
“Eternity, Eternity, and Power.”