Grace, and majesty, and power
Were thy gifts by nature made;
Yet, in one unhappy hour,
All to lose, wast thou betrayed.
When thou first was snared and caught,
Never after to be free,
How thy mighty spirit wrought
In thee, like a troubled sea!
But thou didst not, couldst not think
Of the deep indignity,
To which thou then wast doomed to sink—
Of the exile thou must be.
Oh! that quenched and languid eye
Tells me of a pining heart:
Homesick prisoner, sooner die
Than remain the thing thou art.
Liberty to me and mine—
Liberty is life and breath!
So no less to thee and thine—
Bonds to both but lingering death.
[THE TRAVELLER AT THE RED SEA.]
At last have I found thee, thou dark, rolling sea!
I gaze on thy face, and I listen to thee,
With spirit o’erawed by the sight and the sound,
While mountain and desert frown gloomy around.
And thee, mighty deep, from afar I behold,
Which God swept apart for his people of old—
That Egypt’s proud army, unstained by their blood,
Received on thy bed, to entomb in thy flood.