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 armaments 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 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 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--'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. THE SHIPWRECK From 'Don Juan' 'Twas twilight, and the sunless day went down Over the waste of waters; like a veil Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frown Of one whose hate is masked but to assail; Thus to their hopeless eyes the night was shown, And grimly darkled o'er their faces pale, And the dim desolate deep: twelve days had Fear Been their familiar, and now Death was here. . . . . . . . There was no light in heaven but a few stars; The boats put off, o'ercrowded with their crews: She gave a heel, and then a lurch to port, And going down head foremost--sunk, in short.