Page:The Domestic Affections, and Other Poems.pdf/167



Heart-sick and faint, the shipwreck'd wanderer stand, Raise the dim eye, and lift the suppliant hand! Explore with fruitless gaze the billowy main, And weep—and pray—and linger!—but in vain!

Thence, roving wild thro' many a depth of shade! Where voice ne'er echo'd, footstep never stray'd; He fondly seeks, o'er cliffs and deserts rude, Haunts of mankind, 'midst realms of solitude! And pauses oft, and sadly hears alone, The wood's deep sigh, the surge's distant moan! All else is hush'd! so silent, so profound, As if some viewless power, presiding round, With mystic spell, unbroken by a breath, Had spread for ages the repose of death! Ah! still the wanderer, by the boundless deep, Lives but to watch,—and watches but to weep! He sees no sail in faint perspective rise, His the dread loneliness of sea and skies!