Tremendous Ocean lay.
The mirror of its stillness shewed
The pale and waning stars,
The chariot's fiery track,
And the grey light of morn
Tinging those fleecy clouds
That canopied the dawn.
Seemed it, that the chariot's way
Lay through the midst of an immense concave
Radiant with million constellations, tinged"
With shades of infinite colour,
And semicircled with a belt
Flashing incessant meteors.
The magic car moved on.
As they approached their goal
The coursers seemed to gather speed:
The sea no longer was distinguished; earth
Appeared a vast and shadowy sphere:
The sun's unclouded orb
Rolled through the black concave;
Its rays of rapid light
Parted around the chariot's swifter course,
And fell like ocean's feathery spray
Dashed from the boiling surge
Before a vessel's prow.
The magic car moved on.
Earth's distant orb appeared
The smallest light that twinkles in the heaven;
Whilst round the chariot's way
Innumerable systems rolled,
And countless spheres diffused
An ever-varying glory.
It was a sight of wonder: some
Were horned like the crescent moon;
Some shed a mild and silver beam
Like Hesperus o'er the western sea;
Some dash'd athwart with trains of flame,
Like world's to death and ruin driven;
Some shone like suns, and, as the chariot passed,
Eclipsed all other light.
That lurks in graves and fattens on the dead
Less shares thy eternal breath.
Spirit of Nature! thou!
Imperishable as this scene,
Here is thy fitting temple.
IF solitude hath ever led thy steps
To the wild ocean's echoing shore,
And thou hast lingered there
Until the sun's broad orb
Seemed resting on the burnished wave,
Thou must have marked the lines
Of purple gold, that motionless
Hung o'er the sinking sphere:
Thou must have marked the billowy clouds
Edged with intolerable radiancy.
Towering like rocks of jet
Crowned with a diamond wreath.
And yet there is a moment,
When the sun's highest point
Peeps like a star o'er ocean's western edge,
When those far clouds of feathery gold,
Shaded with deepest purple, gleam
Like islands on a dark blue sea;
Then has thy fancy soared above the earth,
And furled its wearied wing
Within the Fairy's fane.
Yet not the golden islands
Gleaming in yon flood of light,
Nor the feathery curtains
Stretching o'er the sun's bright couch,
Nor the burnished ocean waves
Paving that gorgeous dome,
So fair, so wonderful, a sight
As Mab's ethereal palace could afford.
Yet likest evening's vault, that faery Hall!
As Heaven, low resting on the wave, it spread
Its floors of flashing light,
Its vast and azure dome,
Its fertile golden islands
Floating on a silver sea;
Whilst suns their mingling beamings darted
Through clouds of circumambient darkness,
And pearly battlements around
Looked o'er the immense of Heaven
The magic car no longer moved
The Fairy and the Spirit,
Entered the Hall of Spells:
Those golden clouds,
That rolled in glittering billows
Beneath the azure canopy
With the etherial footsteps, trembled not:
The light and crimson mists,
Floating to strains of thrilling melody
Through that unearthly dwelling,
Yielded to every movement of the will.
Upon their passive swell the Spirit leaned,
And, for the varied bliss that pressed around,
Used not the glorious privilege
Of virtue and of wisdom.
Spirit! the Fairy said,
And pointed to the gorgeous dome,
This is a wondrous sight,
And mocks all human grandeur;
But, were it virtue's only meed to dwell
In a celestial palace, all resigned
To pleasurable impulses, immured
Within the prison of itself, the will
Of changeless nature would be unfulfilled,
Learn to make others happy. Spirit, come!
This is thine high reward the past shall rise.
Thou shalt behold the present: I will teach
The secrets of the future.
The Fairy and the Spirit
Approached the overhanging battlement.-.
Below lay stretched the universe'
There, far as the remotest line
That bounds imagination's flight,
Countless and unending orbs,
In mazy motion intermingled,
Yet still fulfilled immutably
Eternal nature's law.
Above, below, around,
The circling systems formed
A wilderness of harmony;
Each with undeviating aim,
In eloquence silence, through the depths of space
Pursued its wondrous way.
There was a little light
That twinkled in the misty distance:
None but a spirit's eye
Might ken that rolling orb;
None but a spirit's eye,
And in no other place
But that celestial dwelling, might behold
Each action of this earth's inhabitants.
But matter, space, and time,
In those aerial mansions cease to act:
And all-prevailing wisdom, when it reaps
The harvest of its excellence, o'erbounds
Those obstacles of which an earthly soul
Fears to attempt the conquest.
The Fairy pointed to the earth.
The Spirit's intellectual eye
Its kindred beings recognized.
The thronging thousands, to a passing view, Seemed like an ant-hill's citizens.
How wonderful! that even
The passions, prejudices, interests,
That sway the meanest being, the weak touch That moves the finest nerve,
And in one human brain
Causes the faintest thought, becomes a link
In the great chain of nature.
Behold, the Fairy cried,
Palmyra's ruined palaces !-
Behold! where grandeur frowned;
Behold where pleasure smiled;
What now remains ?-the memory
Of senselessness and shame-
What is immortal there?
Nothing-it stands to tell
A melancholy tale, to give
An awful warning: soon
Oblivion will steal silently
The remnant of its fame.
Monarchs and conquerors there Proud o'er prostrate millions trodThe earthquakes of the human race; Like them forgotten when the ruin That marks their shock is past.
Beside the eternal Nile
The pyramids have risen.
Nile shall pursue his changeless way:
Those pyramids shall fall:
Yea, not a stone shall stand to tell
The spot whereon they stood;
Their very site shall be forgotten,
As is their builder's name '
Behold yon sterile spot,
Where now the wandering Arab's tent
Flaps in the desert blast,
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