High 'mid the shelves of a grey cliff, that yet 
Riseth in Babylonian mass above, 
In a benched cleft, as in the mouldered chair 
Of grey-beard Time himself, I sit alone, 
And gaze with a keen wondering happiness 
Out o'er the sea. Unto the circling bend 
That verges Heaven, a vast luminous plain 
It stretches, changeful as a lover's dream -- 
Into great spaces mapped by light and shade 
In constant interchange -- either 'neath clouds 
The billows darken, or they shimmer bright 
In sunny scopes of measureless expanse. 
'Tis Ocean dreamless of a stormy hour, 
Calm, or but gently heaving; -- yet, O God! 
What a blind fate-like mightiness lies coiled 
In slumber, under that wide-shining face! 
While o'er the watery gleam -- there where its edge 
Banks the dim vacancy, the topmost sails 
Of some tall ship, whose hull is yet unseen, 
Hang as if clinging to a cloud that still 
Comes rising with them from the void beyond, 
Like to a heavenly net, drawn from the deep 
And carried upward by ethereal hands.