Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 2.djvu/504

460 CLXXXII.

Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee—

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

Thy waters washed them power 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.

CLXXXIII.

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form

Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,

Calm or convulsed—in breeze, or gale, or storm—

Icing the Pole, or in the torrid clime