Poems (Hoffman)/The Depths
THE DEPTHS
Sublime and wonderful art thou, O deep,Illustrious ocean, vast unmeasured waste!Lost in thy contemplation, I do seemEven as a grain of sand upon thy beach,That shouldst thou reach thy giant arms to graspWould melt away in thy dissolving foam,Nor yet be missed among the myriads left;Yet in thy calms and tempests, I can readThe moods and passions of the human soul;Nor are thy changing winds and tides more realThat those that sweep and sway the depths of thought
Calm is thy breast to-day, thou fitful main,And yet perchance before the eastern starSheds o'er thy surface her supernal beams,High on yon crags thy maddened spray shall dashAnd the wild roar of elemental warShall cause the dwellers on thy cliffs to quakeAnd the brave mariner to grow sick at heart.
Why is this murmuring, this wild unrest?This never-ending conflict with thyself,As if thou wouldst burst through thy massive gatesAnd fling thy treasures through celestial space,Strew the pale Occident with coral spraysAnd the blue zenith with ten-thousand gems;Or scatter pearls throughout the Orient flames;Or yet go seething through yon crested heightsAnd with a voice like Gabriel's trumpet, tellThe pent-up secrets of thy hidden depthsUnto the flaming beacon of the day?
'Tis vain—with all thy vast gigantic power,Thou canst but cast a few frail treasures forth,Perchance a seaweed spray or tinted shell, Dripping and glistening from thy briny surf,Cast out upon the sands, that wheresoe'erFate or caprice may bear its fragile form,A whispered song from its pink lips is heardThat seems to speak of caverns deep and loneSunk in thy heaving bosom, restless sea,That eye hath never seen, nor yet a rayFrom the bright flickering lamps of Heaven has pierced.
Thus do the surges of the spirit riseAnd dash against their narrow prison walls,Clap their rapt wings and long for liberty;Or in a vague unrest beat to and fro,Forever striving to yield up the thingsThat pent in their own beings will not restAh! like the sea, they only render upPerchance a thought from out their hidden caves,That, like the sea-shell, murmurs of the depthsThat slept before undreamed of far below;Within the human soul lie depths as deepAs ever slept within the ocean's breast,And heights that rise beyond the breaker's crestIn the vain wish to pass their narrow bound.
Lo, o'er the depths of ocean and of soulBreathes forth a voice that calms their wild unrest:"Peace, be thou still," "to me thou shalt yield up,The garnered fullness of thy hidden things;To me the deep shall pour her treasures out;To me the ocean shall her secrets tell;At my command the sea shall burst her gatesAnd the chained treasures of the depths come forth;"So shall the soul break forth at last in song;So shall her pent-up longings be unloosedTo sweep adown the aisles of endless time;So shall the depths therein in endless praisePour out their garnered fullness unto God.