POEMS, SACRED AND MORAL.
67
I. 3.
Why grasp at universal power?
Content, enjoy thy partial reign:
For thine is many a noiseless hour,
And many a shipless sea, and many a trackless plain.
Thine Zahara's burning noon:
Thine spicy hills to Tropic suns that glow:
Thine Hecla's furnace, thine the snow
That glisters to the polar Moon.
Nile for Thee his secret head,
And wasting Niger guards his dusty bed,
And Patagonia bends her howling shore:
For Thee to meet the skies
Yon stony Needles[1] rise,
Where never foot shall climb, nor pinion soar.
Why grasp at universal power?
Content, enjoy thy partial reign:
For thine is many a noiseless hour,
And many a shipless sea, and many a trackless plain.
Thine Zahara's burning noon:
Thine spicy hills to Tropic suns that glow:
Thine Hecla's furnace, thine the snow
That glisters to the polar Moon.
Nile for Thee his secret head,
And wasting Niger guards his dusty bed,
And Patagonia bends her howling shore:
For Thee to meet the skies
Yon stony Needles[1] rise,
Where never foot shall climb, nor pinion soar.
- ↑ The inaccessible Aiguïlles de Dreux, de Moine, &c. among the Swiss Alps.
