Page:Selections from the American poets (IA selectamerpoet00bryarich).pdf/110
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WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS.
Leon. Now, now, thou hast it there:
Thou dost not longer question. It is there.
Thou dost not longer question. It is there.
Spirit sings.
O'er the wide world of ocean
My home is afar,
Beyond its commotion,
I laugh at its war;
Yet by destiny bidden,
I cannot deny,
All night I have ridden
From my home in the sky.
My home is afar,
Beyond its commotion,
I laugh at its war;
Yet by destiny bidden,
I cannot deny,
All night I have ridden
From my home in the sky.
In the billow before thee
My form is conceal'd,
In the breath that comes o'er thee
My thought is reveal'd;
Strown thickly beneath me
The coral rocks grow,
And the waves that enwreath me
Are working thee we.
My form is conceal'd,
In the breath that comes o'er thee
My thought is reveal'd;
Strown thickly beneath me
The coral rocks grow,
And the waves that enwreath me
Are working thee we.
Leon. Did'st hear the strain it utter'd, Isabel?
Isa. All, all! It spoke, methought, of peril near,
From rocks and wiles of the ocean: did it not?
Leon. It did, but idly! Here can lurk no rocks;
For, by the chart which now before me lies,
Thy own impractised eye may well discern
The wide extent of the ocean—shoreless all.
The land, for many a league, to th' eastward hangs,
And not a point beside it.
Isa. Wherefore, then,
Should come this voice of warning?
Leon. From the deep:
It hath its demons as the earth and air,
All tributaries to the master-fiend
That sets their springs in motion. This is one,
That, doubting to mislead us, plants this wile,
So to divert our course, that we may strike
The very rocks be fain would warn us from.
Isa. All, all! It spoke, methought, of peril near,
From rocks and wiles of the ocean: did it not?
Leon. It did, but idly! Here can lurk no rocks;
For, by the chart which now before me lies,
Thy own impractised eye may well discern
The wide extent of the ocean—shoreless all.
The land, for many a league, to th' eastward hangs,
And not a point beside it.
Isa. Wherefore, then,
Should come this voice of warning?
Leon. From the deep:
It hath its demons as the earth and air,
All tributaries to the master-fiend
That sets their springs in motion. This is one,
That, doubting to mislead us, plants this wile,
So to divert our course, that we may strike
The very rocks be fain would warn us from.