In long array, or hither flit and yond
Mysteriously with slow and crossing lights,
Like spirits on the darkness of the deep.

There is a magnet-like attraction in
These waters to the imaginative power,
That links the viewless with the visible,
And pictures things unseen. To realms beyond
Yon highway of the world my fancy flies,
When by her tall and triple mast we know
Some noble voyager that has to woo
The trade-winds, and to stem the ecliptic surge.
The coral groves--the shores of conch and pearl,
Where she will cast her anchor, and reflect
Her cabin-window lights on warmer waves,
And under planets brighter than our own:
The nights of palmy isles, that she will see
Lit boundless by the fire fly--all the smells
Of tropic fruits that will regale her--all
The pomp of nature, and the inspiriting
Varieties of life she has to greet,
Come swarming o'er the meditative mind.

True, to the dream of Fancy, Ocean has
His darker hints; but where's the element
That chequers not its usefulness to man
With casual terror? Scathes not earth sometimes
Her children with Tartarean fires, or shakes
Their shrieking cities, and, with one last clang
Or hells for their own ruin, strews them flat