The sea is mighty, but a mightier swaysHis restless billows. Thou, whose hands have scoopedHis boundless gulfs and built his shore, thy breath,That moved in the beginning o'er his face,Moves o'er it evermore. The obedient wavesTo its strong motion roll, and rise and fall.Still from that realm of rain thy cloud goes up,As at the first, to water the great earth,And keep her valleys green. A hundred realmsWatch its broad shadow warping on the wind,And in the dropping shower, with gladness hearThy promise of the harvest. I look forthOver the boundless blue, where joyouslyThe bright crests of innumerable wavesGlance to the sun at once, as when the handsOf a great multitude are upward flungIn acclamation. I behold the shipsGliding from cape to cape, from isle to isle,Or stemming toward far lands, or hastening homeFrom the old world. It is thy friendly breezeThat bears them, with the riches of the land,And treasure of dear lives, till, in the port,The shouting seaman climbs and furls the sail.
But who shall bide thy tempest, who shall faceThe blast that wakes the fury of the sea?Oh God! thy justice makes the world turn pale,When on the armed fleet, that royallyBears down the surges, carrying war, to smiteSome city, or invade some thoughtless realm,Descends the fierce tornado. The vast hulksAre whirled like chaff upon the waves; the sailsFly, rent like webs of gossamer; the mastsAre snapped asunder; downward from the decks,Downward are slung, into the fathomless gulf,Their cruel engines; and their hosts, arrayedIn trappings of the battle-field, are whelmedBy whirlpools, or dashed dead upon the rocks.Then stand the nations still with awe, and pause,A moment, from the bloody work of war.
These restless surges eat away the shoresOf earth's old continents; the fertile plainWelters in shallows, headlands crumble down,And the tide drifts the sea-sand in the streetsOf the drowned city. Thou, meanwhile, afarIn the green chambers of the middle sea,Where broadest spread the waters and the lineSinks deepest, while no eye beholds thy work,Creator! thou dost teach the coral wormTo lay his mighty reefs. From age to age,He builds beneath the waters, till, at last,His bulwarks overtop the brine, and checkThe long wave rolling from the southern poleTo break upon Japan. Thou bid'st the fires,That smoulder under ocean, heave on highThe new-made mountains, and uplift their peaks,A place of refuge for the storm-driven bird.The birds and wafting billows plant the riftsWith herb and tree; sweet fountains gush; sweet airsRipple the living lakes that, fringed with flowers,Are gathered in the hollows. Thou dost lookOn thy creation and pronounce it good.Its valleys, glorious with their summer green,Praise thee in silent beauty, and its woods,Swept by the murmuring winds of ocean, joinThe murmuring shores in a perpetual hymn.