THE OCEAN OF THE PAST.
My wistful eyes still sweep thy sullen breast,
Dead sea, whose waves, once, following stroke on stroke,
Have swallowed mast and sail and hull of oak.
Now all thy cruel billows are at rest;
Hushed is thy roar, and stilled each raging crest;
No phantom from thy mists may I evoke,
No more my prow or sail the waves provoke,
Where sleeps my happy island of the blest.
Lo, while I gaze, like the responsive swell
Of some great yearning heart, the billows rise,
Till, in wild tumult leaping to the skies,
They toss the beauteous wrecks I loved so well,
Resistless through the rending barriers roll
And sob through all the caverns of my soul.