For, though impassive to the elements,

The form I wore was exquisitely tuned

To Nature's sympathies; joy, fear, hope, sorrow, (As though I yet were in the body) moved, Elated, shook, or tranquillized my soul.

Thus pass'd the day night follow'd, deck'd with

stars

Innumerable, and the pale new moon,

Beneath her feet, a slight inverted crescent,

Soon disappearing.

Time flew on, and brought

Alternate morn and eve. The sun, the stars,

The moon through all her phases, waxing, waning,

The planets seeking rest, and finding none,

These were the only objects in mine eye,

The constant burthen of my thoughts, perplex'd

With vain conjectures why they were created.

Once, at high noon, amidst a sultry calm,
Looking around for comfort, I descried,
Far on the green horizon's utmost verge,
A wreath of cloud; to me a glad discovery,
For each new image sprang a new idea,

The

germ of thoughts to come, that could not die.

The little vapour rapidly expanded,

Lowering and thickening till it hid the sun,
And threw a starless night upon the sea.
Eagerly, tremblingly, I watch'd the end.

Faint gleam'd the lightning, follow'd by no peal;
Dreary and hollow moans foretold a gale;
Nor long the issue tarried; then the wind,
Unprison'd blew its trumpet loud and shrill;
Out flash'd the lightnings gloriously; the rain
Came down like music, and the full-toned thunder
Roll'd in grand harmony throughout high heaven :
Till ocean, breaking from his black supineness,
Drown'd in his own stupendous uproar all

The voices of the storm beside; meanwhile

A war of mountains raged upon his surface;
Mountains each other swallowing, and again
New Alps and Andes, from unfathom'd valleys
Upstarting, join'd the battle; like those sons
Of earth, giants, rebounding as new-born

From every fall on their unwearied mother.
I glow'd with all the rapture of the strife :
Beneath was one wild whirl of foaming surges;
Above the array of lightnings, like the swords
Of cherubim, wide brandish'd, to repel

Aggression from heaven's gates; their flaming strokes
Quench'd momentarily in the vast abyss.

The voice of Him who walks upon the wind, And sets his throne upon the floods, rebuked The headlong tempest in its mid-career,

And turn'd its horrors to magnificence.

The evening sun broke through the embattled

clouds,

And threw round sky and sea, as by enchantment,

A radiant girdle, binding them to peace,

In the full rainbow's harmony of beams;

No brilliant fragment, but one sevenfold circle,

That spann'd the horizon, meted out the heavens, And underarch'd the ocean.

'Twas a scene,

That left itself for ever on my

mind.

Night, silent, cool, transparent, crown'd the day; The sky receded further into space,

The stars came lower down to meet the eye,

Till the whole hemisphere, alive with light,
Twinkled from east to west by one consent.
The constellations round the arctic pole,
That never set to us, here scarcely rose,
But in their stead, Orion through the north
Pursued the Pleiads; Sirius, with his keen,
Quick scintillations, in the zenith reign'd.
The south unveil'd its glories; - there, the Wolf,
With eyes of lightning, watch'd the Centaur's spear;
Through the clear hyaline, the Ship of Heaven

Came sailing from eternity; the Dove,
On silver pinions, wing'd her peaceful way;
There, at the footstool of Jehovah's throne,
The Altar, kindled from his presence, blazed;
There, too, all else excelling, meekly shone
The Cross, the symbol of redeeming love :
The Heavens declared the glory of the Lord,
The firmament display'd his handy-work.

With scarce inferior lustre gleam'd the sea, Whose waves were spangled with phosphoric fire, As though the lightnings there had spent their shafts, And left the fragments glittering on the field.

Next morn, in mockery of a storm, the breeze And waters skirmish'd; bubble-armies fought Millions of battles on the crested surges,

And where they fell, all cover'd with their glory,

Traced in white foam on the cerulean main

Paths, like the milky-way among the stars.