Hail to thy face and odours, glorious Sea! ’Twere thanklessness in me to bless thee not, Great beauteous Being! in whose breath and smile My heart beats calmer, and my very mind Inhales salubrious thoughts. How welcomer Thy murmurs than the murmurs of the world! Though like the world thou fluctuatest, thy din To me is peace, thy restlessness repose. E’en gladly I exchange yon spring-green lanes With all the darling field-flowers in their prime, And gardens haunted by the nightingales’ Long trills and gushing ecstacies of song For these wild headlands and the sea-mew’s clang— With thee beneath my windows, pleasant Sea, I long not to o’erlook earth’s fairest glades And green savannahs—Earth has not a plain So boundless or so beautiful as thine; The eagle’s vision cannot take it in: The lightning’s wing too weak to sweep its space Sinks half-way o’er it like a wearied bird: It is the mirror of the stars, where all Their hosts within the concave firmament, Gay marching to the music of the spheres, Can see themselves at once. Nor on the stage Of rural landscape are there lights and shades Of more harmonious dance and play than thine. How vividly this moment brightens forth, Between grey parallel and leaden breadths. A belt of hues that stripes thee many a league, Flushed like the rainbow, or the ringdove’s neck, And giving to the glancing sea-bird’s wing The semblance of a meteor. Mighty sea! Cameleon-like thou changest, but there’s love In all thy change, and constant sympathy With yonder Sky—thy Mistress; from her brow Thou tak’st thy moods and wear’st her colours on Thy faithful bosom; morning’s milky white, Noon’s sapphire, or the saffron glow of eve; And all thy balmier hours, fair Element, Have such divine complexion—crispèd smiles, Luxuriant heavings, and sweet whisperings, That little is the wonder Love’s own Queen From thee of old was fabled to have sprung— Creation’s common! which no human power Can parcel or enclose; the lordliest floods And cataracts that the tiny hands of man Can tame, conduct, or bound, are drops of dew To thee that couldst subdue the Earth itself, And brook’st commandment from the Heavens alone For marshalling thy waves— Yet, potent sea! How placidly thy moist lips speak e’en now Along yon sparkling shingles. Who can be So fanciless as to feel no gratitude That power and grandeur can be so serene, Soothing the home-bound navy’s peaceful way, And rocking e’en the fisher’s little bark As gently as a mother rocks her child?—