Classic Poem

Almighty wisdom made the land
Subject to man's disturbing hand,
And left it all for him to fill
With marks of his ambitious will,
But differently devised the sea
Unto an unlike destiny.

Urgent and masterful ashore,
Man dreams and plans,
And more and more,
As ages slip away, Earth shows
How need by satisfaction grows,
And more and more its patient face
Mirrors the driving human race.

But he who ploughs the abiding deep
No furrow leaves, nor stays to reap.
Unmarred and unadorned, the sea
Rolls on as irresistibly
As when, at first, the shaping thought
Of God its separation wrought.

Down to its edge the lands-folk flock,
And in its salt embraces mock
Sirius, his whims. Forever cool,
Its depths defy the day-star's rule:
Serene it basks while children's hands
Its margin score and pit its sands.

And ever in it life abides,
And motion. To and fro its tides,
Borne down with waters, ever fare.
However listless hangs the air,
Still, like a dreamer, all at rest,
Rises and falls the ocean's breast.

Benign, or roused by savage gales;
Fog veiled, or flecked with gleaming sails;
A monster ravening for its prey,
Anon, the nations' fair highway —
In all its moods, in all its might,
'Tis the same sea that first saw light.

The sea the Tyrians dared explore;
The sea Odysseus wandered o'er;
The sea the cruising Northmen harried,
That Carthage wooed, and Venice married;
Across whose wastes, by faith led on,
Columbus tracked the westering sun.

Great nurse of freedom, breeding men
Who dare, and baffled, strive again!
A rampart round them in their youth,
A refuge in their straits and ruth,
And in their seasoned strength, a road
To carry liberty abroad!

When all about thy billows lie,
Sole answer to the questioning eye,
To where the firmament its bound
Stretches their heaving masses round,
With that above, and only thee,
Fixed in thine instability —

Then timely to the soul of man
Come musings on the eternal plan
Which man himself was made to fit,
And Earth and waters under it;
Wherewith in harmony they move,
And only they, whose guide is love.

Who made the plan and made the sea
Denied not man a destiny
To match his thought. Though mists obscure
And storms retard, the event is sure.
Each surging wave cries evermore
" Death, also, has its farther shore! "