What a magnificent picture does he give us in these descriptive lines, one of the finest passages in all poetry : Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Stops with the shore ;-upon the watery plain When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, His steps are not upon thy paths,-thy fields Are not a spoil for him,-thou dost arise And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields The armaments which thunder-strike the walls These are thy toys, and as the snowy flake, Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee- Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play- Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm, Dark-heaving ;-boundless, endless, and sublime— The image of Eternity-the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be The foregoing suggests another beautiful passage,-The Shipwreck,-in Don Juan : Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell Then shriek'd the timid, and stood still the brave,— Then some leap'd overboard with dreadful yell, As eager to anticipate their grave; And the sea yawn'd around her like a hell, And down she suck'd with her the whirling wave, Like one who grapples with his enemy, And strives to strangle him before he die. And first one universal shriek there rush'd, A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry |