Poems (Hoffman)/The Pacific
THE PACIFIC
Beautiful Pacific! Queen of every ocean!Grasping earth's proud continents in thine outstretched arms,Loud thy royal music-bands, in their deep commotion,Swell their notes of harmony, to praise thy queenly charms.Where thy train of purple sweeps the far horizonFringed with sunset-amber, sprinkled o'er with gold,Where the Orient rainbow doth thy crown emblazon,Monarchs awed before thee, do thy power behold.Tread'st there another where thy jewels brightenAll thy mystic palace with its secret crypts?Readest there another, the strange history writtenIn whose well of knowledge, science vainly dips?With their snowy turbans sparkling in the glamourOf the golden sunshine, surge the orchestra;But though for thy captives, nations vainly clamor,Deep and mighty music drowns thy mystery;Thou hast hid thy captives in the deep recessesWhere no footfall echoes, but thy regal tread;There the sailor's pallid form his couch of sea-weed pressesAnd the rash explorer makes his lowly bed;There the strong ship's anchor, wound in tangled cablesRusts amid her ruin, in darkness and débris,Where the ghastly skeleton mocks the idle fablesSung in playful measure by the blue waves of the bay.Queen of every ocean, beautiful Pacific!Every sportive wave of thine is armed a cruel foe,Terrible in anger, in kindly mood seraphic,Store-house of prosperity and charnel-house of woe.Nature's mighty forces crowned thy jeweled tresses,With a grander crown than ever mortal monarch wore,Thou who spite thy ravage, each country more than blessesWhere thy dark blue breakers beat against the shore.