Page:The West Indies, and Other Poems.djvu/17

 Bared to the storm his adamantine breast,

Or soft on ocean's lap lay down to rest;

While free as clouds the liquid ether sweep,

His white-wing'd vessels coursed the unbounded deep;

From clime to clime the wanderer loved to roam,

The waves his heritage, the world his home.

Then first Columbus, with the mighty hand

Of grasping genius, weigh'd the sea and land; The floods o'erbalanced:—where the tide of light.

Day after day, roll'd down the gulph of night,

There seem'd one waste of waters:—long in vain His spirit brooded o'er the Atlantic main; When sudden, as creation burst from nought.

Sprang a new world through his stupendous thought,

Light, order, beauty!—While his mind explored

The unveiling mystery, his heart adored; Where'er sublime imagination trod,

He heard the voice, he saw the face of God.