A Coast View

High 'mid the shelves of a grey cliff, that yetRiseth in Babylonian mass above,In a benched cleft, as in the mouldered chairOf grey-beard Time himself, I sit alone,And gaze with a keen wondering happinessOut o'er the sea. Unto the circling bendThat verges Heaven, a vast luminous plainIt stretches, changeful as a lover's dream —Into great spaces mapped by light and shadeIn constant interchange — either 'neath cloudsThe billows darken, or they shimmer brightIn sunny scopes of measureless expanse.'Tis Ocean dreamless of a stormy hour,Calm, or but gently heaving; — yet, O God!What a blind fate-like mightiness lies coiledIn slumber, under that wide-shining face!While o'er the watery gleam — there where its edgeBanks the dim vacancy, the topmost sailsOf some tall ship, whose hull is yet unseen,Hang as if clinging to a cloud that stillComes rising with them from the void beyond,Like to a heavenly net, drawn from the deepAnd carried upward by ethereal hands.