Into the deeps an age has passed since then,
Yet evermore for me, more humble grown,
The vision of His awesome presence veiled,
Burns in the flying spheres, still all unknown,
In nature's mist-immantled seas unsailed,
And in the deeper shadowed hearts of men.
[RESISTLESS FATE.]
Resistless fate and iron destiny
Are writ upon the tide—its branded mark.
It comes and goes heedless of wind or bark,
Nature's untamed and tameless energy.
So rolls the cycle of eternity,—
Days, months, and years—faint shadows on the arc
Within our human ken—rush from the dark
And speed return as God's own mystery.
I on this tide-beat shore, and clutching time,
Marvel of what account my selfhood's will,—
'Gainst timeless might time's impotence is laid!
And through my inmost soul, as at the prime,
A voice from out the awesome vast doth thrill:
"O man, thou art in God's own image made!"
[THE SEA UNDINE.]
Exquisite thing soft cradled by the tide,
Sprung not from lathe or wheel or human wit,
Wonder of whorls which touch the infinite,—
Shallop that waits a brave undine's white bride!
Within, the smooth and sheeny walls are dyed
With the pure pink of autumn dawns alit;
Without, with stories of the deep o'er-writ,—
How fairy slight the thunderous seas to ride!