Charm'd with the spectacle, yet deeply touch'd
With a forlorn and not untender feeling —
"Why," said my thoughts within me, "why this waste
Of loveliness and grandeur unenjoy'd?

Is there no life throughout this fair existence?
Sky, sun, and sea, the moon, the stars, the clouds,
Wind, lightning, thunder, are but ministers;
They know not what they are, nor what they do:
O for the beings for whom these were made!"

Light as a flake of foam

upon the wind,

Keel upward from the deep emerged a shell,
Shaped like the moon ere half her horn is fill'd;
Fraught with young life, it righted as it rose,
And moved at will along the yielding water.
The native pilot of this little bark

Put out a tier of oars on either side,

Spread to the wafting breeze a two-fold sail,
And mounted up and glided down the billow
In happy freedom, pleased to feel the air,

And wander in the luxury of light.

Worth all the dead creation, in that hour,
To me appear'd this lonely Nautilus,

My fellow-being, like myself alive.

Entranced in contemplation vague yet sweet,
I watch'd its vagrant course and rippling wake,
Till I forgot the sun amidst the heavens.

It closed, sunk, dwindled to a point, then nothing;
While the last bubble crown'd the dimpling eddy,
Through which mine eye still giddily pursued it,
A joyous creature vaulted through the air,-
The aspiring fish that fain would be a bird,
On long light wings, that flung a diamond shower
Of dew-drops round its evanescent form,
Sprang into light, and instantly descended.

Ere I could greet the stranger as a friend,

Or mourn his quick departure, on the surge,

A shoal of Dolphins, tumbling in wild glee,

Glow'd with such orient tints, they might have been

The rainbow's offspring, when it met the ocean In that resplendent vision I had seen.

While yet in ecstasy I hung o'er these,

With every motion pouring out fresh beauties, As though the conscious colours came and went At pleasure, glorying in their subtle changes, Enormous o'er the flood, Leviathan

Look'd forth, and from his roaring nostrils sent Two fountains to the sky, then plunged amain In headlong pastime through the closing gulf.

These were but preludes to the revelry That reign'd at sunset: then the deep let loose Its blithe adventurers to sport at large,

As kindly instinct taught them; buoyant shells, On stormless voyages, in fleets or single, Wherried their tiny mariners; aloof,

On wing-like fins, in bow-and-arrow figures,

The flying-fishes darted to and fro;

While spouting Whales projected wat❜ry columns,

That turn'd to arches at their height, and seem'd The skeletons of crystal palaces,

Built on the blue expanse, then perishing,

Frail as the element which they were made of:
Dolphins, in gambols, lent the lucid brine

Hues richer than the canopy

of eve,

That overhung the scene with gorgeous clouds,
Decaying into gloom more beautiful

Than the sun's golden liveries which they lost:
Till light that hides, and darkness that reveals

The stars,

exchanging guard, like sentinels

Of day and night,— transform'd the face of nature: Above was wakefulness, silence around,

Beneath, repose, — repose that reach'd even me.

Power, will, sensation, memory, fail'd in turn;

My very essence seem'd to pass away,

Like a thin cloud that melts across the moon,

Lost in the blue immensity of heaven.

THE

PELICAN ISLAND.

CANTO SECOND.

LIFE's intermitting pulse again went on :
I woke amidst the beauty of a morn,
That shone as bright within me as around.
The presence-chamber of the soul was full
Of flitting images and rapturous thoughts;
For eye and mind were open'd to explore
The secrets of the abyss erewhile conceal'd.
The floor of ocean, never trod by man,
Was visible to me as heaven's round roof,

Which man hath never touch'd; the multitude