Poems Sigourney 1834/The Sea
THE SEA.
Emblem of everlasting power, I come
Into thy presence, as an awe-struck child
Before its teacher. Spread thy boundless page,
And I will ponder o'er its characters,
As erst the pleased disciple sought the lore
Of Socrates or Plato. Yon old rock
Hath heard thy voice for ages, and grown grey
Beneath thy smitings, and thy wrathful tide
Even now is thundering 'neath its caverned base.
Methinks it trembleth at the stern rebuke—
Is it not so!
Speak gently, mighty sea!
I would not know the terrors of thine ire
That vex the gasping mariner, and bid
The wrecking argosy to leave no trace
Or bubble where it perished. Man's weak voice,
Though wildly lifted in its proudest strength
With all its compass—all its volumed sound,
Is mockery to thee. Earth speaks of him—
Her levelled mountains—and her cultured vales,
Town, tower and temple, and triumphal arch,
All speak of him, and moulder while they speak.
But of whose architecture and design
Tell thine eternal fountains, when they rise
To combat with the cloud, and when they fall?
Of whose strong culture tell thy sunless plants
And groves and gardens, which no mortal eye
Hath seen and lived?
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.