And rocking e'en the fisher's little bark
As gently as a mother rocks her child?--

The inhabitants of other worlds behold
Our orb more lucid for thy spacious share
On earth's rotundity; and is he not
A blind worm in the dust, great Deep, the man
Who sees not, or who seeing has no joy,
In thy magnificence? What though thou art
Unconscious and material, thou canst reach
The inmost immaterial mind's recess,
And with thy tints and motion stir its chords
To music, like the light on Memnon's lyre!

The Spirit of the Universe in thee
Is visible; thou hast in thee the life--
The eternal, graceful, and majestic life--
Of nature, and the natural human heart
Is therefore bound to thee with holy love.

Earth has her gorgeous towns; the earth-circling sea
Has spires and mansions more amusive still--
Men's volant homes that measure liquid space
On wheel or wing. The chariot of the land,
With pain'd and panting steeds, and clouds of dust,
Has no sight-gladdening motion like these fair
Careerers with the foam beneath their bows,
Whose streaming ensigns charm the waves by day,
Whose carols and whose watch-bells cheer the night,
Moor'd as they cast the shadows of their masts