The Deep

I fain would be thy pupil, mighty Deep!Yet speak thou gently to me, for I fearThy lifted terror, and I would not learnThe lesson that doth make the marinerSo deadly pale.My mother Earth doth teachAn easy lore. She likes to speak of man.Her levell'd mountains and her cultured vales,Town, tower, and temple, and triumphal arch,All speak of man, and moulder while they speak.But of whose architecture and designTell thine eternal fountains, when they riseTo combat with the clouds, or when they fall?Of whose strong culture speak thy sunless plants,And groves and gardens, which no mortal eyeHath seen and lived?What sculptor's art hath wroughtThose coral monuments and tombs of pearl,Where sleeps the sea-boy, mid a pomp that earthDenies her buried kings?Whose science stretch'dThe simplest line to curb thy monstrous tide,And, writing "Hitherto" upon the sand,Bade thy mad surge respect it?From whose loomComes forth thy drapery, that ne'er waxeth old?

Who hath thy keys, thou deep? Who taketh noteOf all thy wealth? Who numbereth the hostThat make their bed with thee? What eye doth scanThy secret annal, from creation lock'dFast in those dark, illimitable cells,Which he who visited hath ne'er return'dTo commune with the living?One reply!Do all thine echoing depths and tossing wavesMake but one answer? of that One Dread NameWhich he who deepest graves within his heartIs wisest, though the world may call him fool?

Therefore I come, a listener to thy voice,And bow me at thy feet, and touch my lipTo thy cool billow, if perchance my soul,That fleeting wanderer on these shores of time,May, by thy voice instructed, learn of God.