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 From these our interviews, in which I steal

From all I may be, or have been before,

To mingle with the Universe, and feel

What I can ne'er express, yet can not all conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue oceal---roll!

Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;

Man marks the earth with ruin---his control

Stops with the shore;---upon the watery plain

The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain

A shaddow of man's ravage, save his own,

When, for a moment, like a drop of rain,

He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,

Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown

His steps are not upon thy paths,---thy fields

Are not a spoil for him,---thou dost arise

And shake him from; the vile strength he wields

For earth's destruction thou doest all despise,

Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,

And send'st him shivering in thy playful spra

And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies

His petty hope in some near port or bay,

And dashest him again to earth:---there let him lay.

The armaments which thunderstrike the walls

Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,

And monarches tremble in their capitals,

The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make

Their clay creator the vain title take

Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;

These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake,

They melt into thy yeast of waves, which man

Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.