Wheeled by me, even as if the earth had rolled
With visible motion her diurnal round.
Behind me did they stretch in solemn train,
Feebler and feebler; and I stood and watched
Till all was tranquil as a summer sea.
OW stretch your eye off shore, o'er waters made
To cleanse the air and bear the world's great trade
To men, and wet the mountains near the sun,
Then back into themselves in rivers run,
Fulfilling mighty uses far and wide,
Through earth, in air, or here, as ocean-tide.
Ho! how the giant heaves himself, and strains
And flings, to break his strong and viewless chains;
Foams in his wrath; and at his prison doors,
Hark! hear him! how he beats and tugs and roars,
As if he would break forth again and sweep
Each living thing within his lowest deep.
Type of the Infinite! I look away
Over thy billows, and I cannot stay
My thought upon a resting-place, or make
A shore beyond my vision, where they break;
But on my spirit stretches, till it's pain.
To think; then rests, and then puts forth again.
Thou hold'st me by a spell; and on thy beach
I feel all soul; and thoughts unmeasured reach
Far back beyond all date. And O! how old
Thou art to me. For countless years thou hast roll'd.
Before an ear did hear thee, thou didst mourn,
Prophet of sorrows, o'er a race unborn;
Waiting, thou mighty minister of death,
Lonely thy work, ere man had drawn his breath.
At last thou didst it well! The dread command
Came, and thou swept it to death, the breathing land,
And then once more, unto the silent heaven
Thy love and melancholy voice was given.
And though the land is thronged again, O Sea!
Strange sadness touches all that goes with thee.
The small bird's plaining note, the wild, sharp call,
Share thy own spirit; it is sadness all!
How dark and stern upon thy waves looks down
Yonder tall cliff - he with the iron crown.
And see! those sable pines along the steep
Are come to join thy requiem, gloomy deep!
Like stolèd monks they stand and chant the dirge
Over the dead, with thy low beating surge.
WALKED beside a dark gray sea,
And said, "O world, how cold thou art!
Thou poor white world, I pity thee,
For joy and warmth from thee depart.
"Yon rising wave licks off the snow,
Winds on the crag each other chase,
In little powdery whirls they blow
The misty fragments down its face.
"The sea is cold, and dark its rim,
Winter sits cowering on the wold,
And I, beside this watery brim,
Am also lonely, also cold."
I spoke, and drew toward a rock,
Where many mews made twittering sweet;
Their wings upreared, the clustering flock
Did pat the sea-grass with their feet.
A rock but half submerged, the sea
Ran up and washed it while they fed;
Their fond and foolish ecstasy
A wondering in my fancy bred.
Joy companied with every cry,
Joy in their food, in that keen wind,
That heaving sea, that shaded sky,
And in themselves, and in their kind.
The phantoms of the deep at play!
What idless graced the twittering things;
Luxurious paddlings in the spray,
And delicate lifting up of wings.
Then all at once a flight, and fast
The lovely crowd flew out at sea;
If mine own life had been recast,
Earth had not looked more changed to me.
Tis dim with snow,
HE speckled sky
The light flakes falter and fall slow; Athwart the hill
top, rapt and pale, Silently drops a
silvery veil;
And all the val
ley is shut in
By flickering cur
tains gray and
Singeth to me on fence and
The snow sails round him, as he sings,
White as the down of angel's wings.
I watch the slow flakes as they fall
On bank and brier and broken wall;
Over the orchard, waste and brown,
All noiselessly they settle down,
Tipping the apple-boughs, and each
Light quivering twig of plum and peach
On turf and curb and bower-roof
The snowstorm spreads its ivory woof;
It paves with pearl the garden-walk,
And lovingly round tattered stalk
And shivering stem its magic weaves
A mantle fair as lily leaves.
The hooded beehive, small and low,
Stands like a maiden in the snow;
And the old door-slab is half hid
Under an alabaster lid.
All day it snows: the sheeted post
Gleams in the dimness like a ghost;
All day the blasted oak has stood
A muffled wizard of the wood;
Garland and airy cap adorn
The sumach and the wayside thorn,
And clustering spangles lodge and shine
In the dark tresses of the pine.
The ragged bramble, dwarfed and old,
Shrinks like a beggar in the cold;
In surplice white the cedar stands,
And blesses him with priestly hands.
Still cheerily the chickadee
Singeth to me on fence and tree:
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