On a stony eminence, that stood Girt with inferior ridges, at the point, Where light and darkness meet in spectral gloom. Midway between the height and depth of ocean, I mark'd a whirlpool in perpetual play, As though the mountain were itself alive, And catching prey on every side, with feelers Countless as sunbeams, slight as gossamer: Ere long transfigured, each fine film became An independent creature, self-employd, Yet but an agent in one common work, The slim of all their individual labours. Shap'less they seem'd, but endless shape assumed; Elongated like worms, they writhed and shrunk Their tortuous bodies to grotesque dimensions; Compress'd like wedges, radiated like stars, Branching like sea-weed, whirl'd in dazzling rings; Subtle and variable as flickering flames, Sight could not trace their evanescent changes, Nor comprehend their motions, till minute And curious observation caught the clew To this live labyrinth,--where every one, By instinct taught, perform'd its little task; --To build its dwelling and its sepulchre, From its own essence exquisitely modell'd; There breed, and die, and leave a progeny, Still multiplied beyond the reach of numbers. To frame new cells and tombs; then breed and die, As all their ancestors had done,--and rest, Hermetically sealed, each in its shrine, A statue in this temple of oblivion! Millions of millions thus, from age to age, With simplest skill, and toil unwearyable. No moment and no movement unimproved, Laid line on line, on terrace terrace spread, To swell the heightening, brightening gradual mound, By marvellous structure climbing tow'rds the day. Each wrought alone, yet altogether wrought, Unconscious, not unworthy, instruments, By which a hand invisible was rearing A new creation in the secret deep. Omnipotence wrought in them, with them, by them; Hence what Omnipotence alone could do, Worms did. I saw the living pile ascend. The mausoleum of its architects, Still dying upwards as their labours closed: Slime the material, but the slime was turn'd To adamant, by their petrific touch; Frail were their frames, ephemeral their lives, Their masonry imperishable. All Life's needful functions, food, exertion, rest, By nice economy of Providence Were overruled to carry on the process. Which out of water brought forth solid rock.