APOSTROPHE TO THE OCEAN.

ROLL 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 remain
A 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.

His steps are not upon thy paths, thy fields
Are not a spoil for him, thou dost arise

And shake him from thee: the vile strength he wields
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,

Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray

And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies

His petty hope in some near port or bay,

And dashest him again to earth: there let him lay.

The armament which thunderstrike 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, or spoils of Trafalgar.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save theeAssyria, 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 thy 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 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 loved thee, Ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward; from a boy
I wantoned with thy breakers - they to me
Were a delight; and if the freshening sea

Made them a terror - 't was 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.

TO INEZ.

NAY, smile not on my sullen brow;
Alas! I cannot smile again:
Yet Heaven avert that ever thou

Shouldst weep, and haply weep in vain.

And dost thou ask, what secret woe
I bear, corroding joy and youth?

And wilt thou vainly seek to know
A pang, even thou must fail to soothe ?

It is not love, it is not hate,

Nor low Ambition's honors lost,
That bids me loathe my present state,
And fly from all I prized the most:

It is that weariness which springs
From all I meet, or hear, or see:

To me no pleasure Beauty brings;

Thine eyes have scarce a charm for me.

It is that settled, ceaseless gloom

That fabled Hebrew wanderer bore; That will not look beyond the tomb, But cannot hope for rest before.

What Exile from himself can flee?

To Zones, though more and more remote,

Still, still pursues, wheree'er I be,

The blight of life— the demon Thought.

Yet others rapt in pleasure seem,
And taste of all that I forsake;
Oh! may they still of transport dream,
And ne'er, at least like me, awake!

Through many a clime 'tis mine to go,
With many a retrospection curst;
And all my solace is to know,

Whate'er betides, I've known the worst.

What is that worst? Nay do not ask

In pity from the search forbear:

Smile on nor venture to unmask

Man's heart, and view the Hell that's there.

STANZAS

WRITTEN IN PASSING THE AMBRACIAN GULF.

THROUGH cloudless skies, in silvery sheen, Full beams the moon on Actium's coast, And on these waves, for Egypt's queen, The ancient world was won and lost.

And now upon the scene I look,

The azure grave of many a Roman; Where stern Ambition once forsook

His wavering crown to follow woman.

Florence! whom I will love as well
As ever yet was said or sung,
(Since Orpheus sang his spouse from hell,)
Whilst thou art fair and I am young;

Sweet Florence! those were pleasant times,
When worlds were staked for ladies' eyes:

Had bards as many realms as rhymes,
Thy charms might raise new Anthonies.

Though Fate forbids such things to be,
Yet, by thine eyes and ringlets curled!

I cannot lose a world for thee,

But would not lose thee for a world.