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 Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee-

Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they?

Thy waters wasted them while they were free,

And many a tyrant since; their shores obey

The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay

Has dried up realms to deserts:---not so thou,

Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play---

Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow---

Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form

Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,

Calm or convuls'd---in breeze, or gale, or storm,

Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime

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

Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

And I have lov'd thee, Ocean! and my joy

Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be

Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy

I wanton'd with thy breakers---they to me

Were a delight; and if the freshening sea

Made them a terror---'twas a pleasing fear,

For I was as it were a child of thee,

And trusted to thy billows far and near

And laid my hand upon thy mane---as I do here.