Page:Pocahontas and Other Poems (NY).pdf/212



would be thy pupil, mighty Deep! Yet speak thou gently to me, for I fear Thy lifted terror, and I would not learn The lesson that doth make the mariner So deadly pale. My mother Earth doth teach An easy lore. She likes to speak of man. Her levell'd mountains and her cultured vales, Town, tower, and temple, and triumphal arch, All speak of man, and moulder while they speak. But of whose architecture and design Tell thine eternal fountains, when they rise To combat with the clouds, or when they fall? Of whose strong culture speak thy sunless plants, And groves and gardens, which no mortal eye Hath seen and lived? What sculptor's art hath wrought Those coral monuments and tombs of pearl, Where sleeps the sea-boy, mid a pomp that earth Denies her buried kings? Whose science stretch'd The simplest line to curb thy monstrous tide, And, writing "Hitherto" upon the sand, Bade thy mad surge respect it? From whose loom Comes forth thy drapery, that ne'er waxeth old?