"What ails thee, restless as the waves that roar,
And fling their foam against thy chalky shore?
Mistress at least, while Providence shall please,
And trident-bearing Queen of the wide seas."
That is majestic—and this is sublime:—
"They trust in navies, and their navies fail—
God's curse can cast away ten thousand sail."
Ay, then, indeed, "ten thousand fleets sail over Thee in vain." Had Byron Cowper's great line in his mind? The copy cannot stand comparison with the original.
If we will try the poet by his words, and know whether he has mastered the consummation of his art by "writing well," we may cull from several instances of suspicious language, in this stanza, the following—
"Nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage save his own."
What is the meaning—the translation? "There is not on the ocean to be found a shadow of ravage in which man is the agent. The only ravage known on the ocean, in which man is concerned, is that which he suffers from the ocean." This, if false, is nevertheless an intelligible proposition. But "ravage" is a strange word—a shocking bad one—applied, as you presently find that it must be, to one drowning man being "ravaged" by being drowned; and even more strange still is the grammatical opposition of "his ravage," as properly signifying, the ravage which he achieves, to "his own ravage" as properly signifying the ravage which he endures!
Moreover, what is meant by "remain"? Properly, to linger for a moment ere disappearing. But the proposition is, that ruin effected by man has no place at all on the waters. The poet means, that as long as you, the contemplator, tread the land, you walk among ruins made by man. When you pass on to the sea, no shadow of such ruin any longer accompanies you,—that is, any longer remains with you.
One great fault of style which the Hymn shows is Equivocation. The words are equivocal. Hence the contradiction—as in this stanza especially—between what is promised and what is done. Weigh for a moment these lines—
"Upon the watery plain,
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,"