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city, or invade some thoughtless realm, Descends the fierce tornado. The vast hulks Are whirled like chaff upon the waves; the sails Fly, rent like webs of gossamer; the masts Are snapped asunder; downward from the decks, Downward are slung, into the fathomless gulf, Their cruel engines; and their hosts, arrayed In trappings of the battle-field, are whelmed By whirlpools, or dashed dead upon the rocks. Then stand the nations still with awe, and pause A moment, from the bloody work of war. These restless surges eat away the shores Of earth's old continents; the fertile plain Welters in shallows, headlands crumble down, And the tide drifts the sea-sand in the streets Of the drowned city. Thou, meanwhile, afar In the green chambers of the middle sea, Where broadest spread the waters and the line Sinks deepest, while no eye beholds thy work, Creator! thou dost teach the coral-worm To lay his mighty reefs. From age to age, He builds beneath the waters, till, at last, His bulwarks overtop the brine, and check The long wave rolling from the southern pole To break upon Japan. Thou bidd'st the fires, That smoulder under ocean, heave on high The new-made mountains, and uplift their peaks, A place of refuge for the storm-driven bird. The birds and wafting billows plant the rifts With herb and tree; sweet fountains gush; sweet airs Ripple the living lakes that, fringed with flowers, Are gathered in the hollows. Thou dost look On thy creation and pronounce it good. Its valleys, glorious in their summer green, Praise thee in silent beauty, and its woods, Swept by the murmuring winds of ocean, join The murmuring shores in a perpetual hymn. NOON. FROM AN UNFINISHED POEM. 'Tis noon. At noon the Hebrew bowed the knee And worshipped, while the husbandmen withdrew From the scorched field, and the wayfaring man Grew faint, and turned aside by bubbling fount, Or rested in the shadow of the palm. I, too, amid the overflow of day, Behold the power which wields and cherishes The frame of Nature. From this brow of rock That overlooks the Hudson's western marge, I gaze upon the long array of groves, The piles and gulfs of verdure drinking in The grateful heats. They love the fiery sun; Their broadening leaves grow glossier, and their sprays Climb as he looks upon them. In the midst, The swelling river,
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