Unmoved, a grim and stately band,
And look, like warriors tried and brave,
Stern, silent, reckless, o’er the wave?”
One, and one alone, is veritably the ruler of the waves. When the floods are risen, when the floods have lift up their voice, and lift up their waves, to Him only it pertaineth to still their tumultuous clamour, and to level their aspiring crests. The waves of the sea are mighty, and rage horribly; yet the Lord, who dwelleth on high, is mightier. “O Lord God of hosts, who is like unto Thee?... Thou rulest the raging of the sea: Thou stillest the waves thereof when they arise.”
With a moral application we conclude, borrowed from one whose was ever the pen of a ready writer to point a moral. Some dream, says Cowper, that
... “they can silence when they will
The storm of passion, and say, ‘Peace, be still:’
But ‘Thus far and no farther,’ when addressed
To the wild wave, or wilder human breast,
Implies authority that never can,