Classic Poem

This giant nerve, at whose command
The world's great pulses throb or sleep,—
It threads the undiscerned repose
Of the dark bases of the deep.

Around it settle in the calm
Fine tissues that a breath might mar,
Nor dream what fiery tidings pass,
What messages of storm and war.

Far over it, where filtered gleams
Faintly illume the mid-sea day,
Strange, pallid forms of fish or weed
In the obscure tide softly sway.

And higher, where the vagrant waves
Frequent the white, indifferent sun,
Where ride the smoke-blue hordes of rain
And the long vapours lift and run,

Passes perhaps some lonely ship
With exile hearts that homeward ache,—
While far beneath is flashed a word
That soon shall bid them bleed or break.