[Page 127]

THE SPIRIT OF NAVIGATION.
70 Inscribed to the Rev. Dr Vincent Hind, Master of Westminster School.

1 Stern Father of the storm! who dost abide
2 Amid the solitude of the vast deep,
3 For ever listening to the sullen tide,
4 And whirlwinds that the billowy desert sweep!
5 Thou at the distant death-shriek dost rejoice;
6 The rule of the tempestuous main is thine,
7 Outstretched and lone; thou utterest thy voice,
8 Like solemn thunders: These wild waves are mine;
9 Mine their dread empire; nor shall man profane
10 The eternal secrets of my ancient reign.
11 The voice is vain: secure, and as in scorn,
12 The gallant vessel scuds before the wind;
13 Her parting sails swell stately to the morn;
14 She leaves the green earth and its hills behind;
15 Gallant before the wind she goes, her prow
16 High bearing, and disparting the blue tide
17 That foams and flashes in its rage below;
18 Meantime the helmsman feels a conscious pride,
19 And while far onward the long billows swell,
20 Looks to the lessening land, that seems to say, Farewell!
21 Father of storms! then let thy whirlwinds roar
22 O'er seas of solitary amplitude;
23 Man, the poor tenant of thy rocky shore,
24 Man, thy terrific empire hath subdued;[Page 128]
25 And though thy waves toss his high-foundered bark
26 Where no dim watch-light gleams, still he defies
27 Thy utmost rage, and in his buoyant ark
28 Speeds on, regardless of the darkening skies;
29 And o'er the mountain-surges, as they roll,
30 Subdues his destined way, and speeds from pole to pole.
31 Behold him now, far from his native plain,
32 Where high woods shade some wild Hesperian bay,
33 Or green isles glitter in the southern main,
34 His streaming ensign to the morn display!
35 Behold him, where the North's pale meteors dance,
36 And icy rocks roll glimmering from afar,
37 Fearless through night and solitude advance!
38 Or where the pining sons of Andamar,
39 When dark eclipse has wrapt the labouring moon,
40 Howl to the demon of the dread monsoon!
41 Time was, like them, poor Nature's shivering child,
42 Pacing the beach, and by the salt spray beat,
43 He watched the melancholy surge, or smiled
44 To see it burn and bicker at his feet;
45 In some rude shaggy spot, by fortune placed,
46 He dreamed not of strange lands, and empires spread,
47 Beyond the rolling of the watery waste;
48 He saw the sun shine on the mountain's head,
49 But knew not, whilst he hailed the orient light,
50 What myriads blessed his beam, or sickened at the sight.
51 From some dark promontory, that o'erbent
52 The flashing waves, he heard their ceaseless roar;
53 Or carolled in his light canoe content,
54 As, bound from creek to creek, it grazed the shore;[Page 129]
55 Gods of the storm the dreary space might sweep,
56 And shapes of death, and gliding spectres gaunt,
57 Might flit, he thought, o'er the remoter deep;
58 And whilst strange voices cried, Avaunt, avaunt!
59 Uncertain lights, seen through the midnight gloom,
60 Might lure him sadly on to his cold watery tomb.
61 No city, then, amid the calm clear day,
62 O'er the blue waters' undulating line,
63 With battlements, and fans that glittered gay,
64 And piers, and thronging masts, was seen to shine.
65 No cheerful sounds were wafted on the gale,
66 Nor hummed the shores with early industry;
67 But mournful birds in hollow cliffs did wail,
68 And there all day the cormorant did cry,
69 While with sunk eye, and matted, dripping locks,
70 The houseless savage slept beneath the foam-beat rocks.
71 Thus slumbering long upon the dreamy verge
72 Of instinct, see, he rouses from his trance!
73 Faint, and as glimmering yet, the Arts emerge,
74 One after one, from darkness, and advance,
75 Beauteous, as o'er the heavens the stars' still way.
76 Now see the track of his dominion wide,
77 Fair smiling as the dayspring; cities gay
78 Lift their proud heads, and o'er the yellow tide,
79 Whilst sounds of fervent industry arise,
80 A thousand pennants float bright streaming in the skies!
81 Genius of injured Asia! once sublime
82 And glorious, now dim seen amid the storm,
83 And melancholy clouds of sweeping time,
84 Who yet dost half reveal thine awful form,[Page 130]
85 Pointing, with saddened aspect and slow hand,
86 To vast emporiums, desolate and waste;
87 To wrecks of unknown cities, sunk in sand!
88 'Twas at thy voice, Arts, Order, Science, Taste.
89 Upsprung, the East adorning, like the smile
90 Of Spring upon the banks of thy own swelling Nile.
91 'Twas at thy voice huge Enterprise awoke,
92 That, long on rocky Aradus reclined,
93 Slumbered to the hoarse surge that round her broke,
94 And hollow pipings of the idle wind;
95 She heard thy voice, upon the rock she stood
96 Gigantic, the rude scene she marked — she cried,
97 Let there be intercourse, and the great flood
98 Waft the rich plenty to these shores denied!
99 And soon thine eye delighted saw aspire,
100 Crowning the midland main, thy own Imperial Tyre.
101 Queen of the waters! who didst ope the gate
102 Of Commerce, and display in lands unknown
103 Thy venturous sail, ev'n now in ancient state
104 Methinks I see thee on thy rocky throne;
105 I see their massy piles thy cothons
71 Artificial harbours.
rear,
106 And on the deep a solemn shadow cast;
107 I traverse thy once echoing shores, and hear
108 The sound of mighty generations past:
109 I see thy kingly merchants' thronged resort,
110 And gold and purple gleam o'er all thy spacious port.
111 I mark thy glittering galleys sweep along —
112 The steady rowers to the strokes incline,
113 And chaunt in unison their choral song;
114 White through their oars the ivory benches shine;[Page 131]
115 The fine-wrought sails, which looms of Egypt wove,
116 Swell beautiful beneath the bending mast;
117 Hewn from proud Lebanon's immortal grove,
118 The oaks of Bashan brave the roaring blast!
119 So o'er the western wave thy vessels float,
120 For verdant Egypt bound, or Calpe's cliffs remote.
121 Queen of the waters! throned upon thy seat
122 Amid the sea, thy beauty and thy fame
123 The deep, that rolls low-murmuring at thy feet,
124 And all the multitude of isles, proclaim!
125 For thee Damascus piles her woolly store;
126 To thee their flocks Arabia's princes bring;
127 And Sheba heaps her spice and glittering ore;
128 The ships of Tarshish of thy glory sing:
72 Ezekiel xxvii. 25, "The ships of Tarshish did sing of thee, and thou wast replenished, and made very glorious in the midst of the seas."
129 Queen of the waters! who is like to thee,
130 Replenished in thy might, and throned on the sea!
131 The purple streamers fly, the trumpets sound,
132 The adventurous bark glides on in tranquil state;
133 The voyagers, with leafy garlands crowned,
134 Draw back their arms together, and elate
135 Sweep o'er the surge; the spray far scattered flies
136 Beneath the stroke of their unwearied oars;
137 To their loud shouts the circling coast replies;
138 And now, o'er the deep ocean, where it roars
139 They fly; till slowly lessening from the shore,
140 Beneath the haze they sink — sink, and are seen no more.
141 When Night descends, and with her silver bow
142 The Queen of Heaven
73 Astarte, or the Moon, the goddess of the Sidonians, called the Queen of Heaven. "The women knead their dough, to make cakes to the Queen of Heaven" (Jer. vii. 18).
comes forth in radiance bright,[Page 132]
143 Surveying the dim earth and seas below;
144 Why from afar resounds the mystic rite
145 Hymned round her uncouth altar? Virgins there
146 (Amid the brazen cymbal's hollow ring)
147 And aged priests the solemn feast prepare;
148 To her their nightly orisons they sing;
149 That she may look from her high throne, and guide
150 The wandering bark secure along the trackless tide.
151 Her on his nightly watch the pilot views
152 Careful, and by her soft and tranquil light,
153 Along the uncertain coast his track pursues;
154 And now he sees great Carmel's woody height,
155 Where nightly fires to grisly Baal burn;
156 Round the rough cape he winds; meantime far on
157 Thick eddying scuds the hollow surf upturn;
158 He thinks of the sweet light of summer gone!
159 He thinks, perhaps, dashed on the rugged shore,
160 He never shall behold his babes' loved mother more!
161 Slow comes the morn; but ah! what demon form,
74 Waterspouts are more frequent near the capes of Latikea, Grecgo, and Carmel, than in any other parts of the Mediterranean Sea. — Shaw's Travels.
162 While pealing thunder the high concave rends,
163 Rises more vast amid the rushing storm!
164 With dreadful shade his horrid bulk ascends
165 Dark to the driving clouds; beneath him roars
166 The deep; his troubled brow is wrapped in gloom;
167 See, it moves onwards; now more huge it soars!
168 Who shall avert the poor seafarer's doom!
169 Who now shall save him from the spectre's might
170 That treads the rocking waves in thunder and in night!
171 Dread phantom! art thou he whose fearful sway,
172 As Egypt's hoary chronicles have told,[Page 133]
173 The clouds, the whirlwinds, and the seas obey,
174 Typhon, of aspect hideous to behold!
175 Oh, spare the wretched wanderers, who, led
176 By flattering hopes, have left the peaceful shore!
177 Behold, they shrink, they bend with speechless dread;
178 From their faint grasp drops the unheeded oar!
179 It answers not, but mingling seas and sky,
180 In clouds, and wind, and thunder, rushes by.
181 Hail to thy light, lord of the golden day,
182 That, bursting through the sable clouds again,
183 Dost cheer the seaman's solitary way,
184 And with new splendour deck the lucid main!
185 And lo! the voyage past, where many a palm,
75 The coast of Egypt is not discovered till its trees are seen.
186 Its green top only seen, the prospect bounds,
187 Fringing the sunny sea-line, clear and calm;
188 Now hark the slowly-swelling human sounds!
189 Meantime the bark along the placid bay
190 Of Tamiatis keeps her easy-winding way.
191 Here rest we safe from scenes of peril past,
192 No danger lurks in this serene retreat;
193 No more is heard the roaring of the blast,
194 But pastoral sounds of scattered flocks that bleat,
195 Or evening herds that o'er the champaign low;
196 Here citrons tall and purple dates around
197 Delicious fragrance and cool shade bestow;
198 The shores with murmuring industry resound;
199 While through the vernal pastures where he strays,
200 The Nile, as with delight, his mazy course delays.

Text

  • TEI/XML (XML - 809K / ZIP - 56K) / ECPA schema (RNC - 357K / ZIP - 73K)
  • Plain text [excluding paratexts] (TXT - 8.9K / ZIP - 4.4K)

Facsimile (Source Edition)

(Page images digitized from a copy held at the University of California Libraries.)

Images

PDF

All Images (PDF - 1.8M)

About this text

Title (in Source Edition): THE SPIRIT OF NAVIGATION.
Author: William Lisle Bowles
Themes:
Genres:

Text view / Document view

Source edition

Bowles, William Lisle, 1762-1850. The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. I. With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes by George Gilfillan. Edinburgh: James Nichol, 9 North Bank Street..., 1855, pp. 127-133.  (Page images digitized from a copy held at the University of California Libraries.)

Editorial principles

Typography, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation have been cautiously modernized. The source of the text is given and all significant editorial interventions have been recorded in textual notes. This ECPA text has been edited to conform to the recommendations found in Level 5 of the Best Practices for TEI in Libraries version 4.0.0.

Other works by William Lisle Bowles