Page:Poems Sigourney, 1834.pdf/271

                                    What chisel's art hath wrought
Those coral monuments, and tombs of pearl,
Where sleeps the sea-boy 'mid a pomp that earth
Ne'er showed her buried kings?
                                                Whose science stretched
The simplest line to curb thy monstrous tide,
And graving "Hitherto" upon the sand,
Bade thy mad surge respect it?
                                                    From whose loom
Come forth thy drapery, that ne'er waxeth old,
Nor blancheth 'neath stern Winter's direst frost?
    Who hath thy keys, thou deep? Who taketh note
Of all thy wealth? Who numbereth the host
That find their rest with thee? What eye doth scan
Thy secret annal, from creation locked
Close in those dark, unfathomable cells—
Which he who visiteth, hath ne'er returned
Among the living?
                                 Still but one reply?
Do all thine echoing depths and crested waves
Make the same answer?— of that One Dread Name—
Which he, who deepest plants within his heart,
Is wisest, though the world may call him fool.
    Therefore, I come a listener to thy lore
And bow me at thy side, and lave my brow
In thy cool billow, if, perchance, my soul,
That fleeting wanderer on the shore of time,
May, by thy voice instructed, learn of God.