Near Avranches
( " La nuit morne tombait. " )
On ocean mournful, vast, fell the vast mournful night.
The darkling wind awoke, and urged to hurried flight,
Athwart the granite-crags, above the granite-crests,
Some sails unto their haven, some birds unto their nests.
Sad unto death, I gazed on all the world around.
Oh! how yon sea is vast and the soul of man profound!
Afar St. Michael towered, the wan salt waves amid,
Huge Cheops of the west, the ocean-pyramid.
On Egypt, home of fathomless mysteries, did I brood,
Its sandy desart's grand eternal solitude,
All-darkling camp of kings ne'er stirred by battle-breath,
Planted for aye i' the sombre stricken field of death.
Alas! In even these spots where widest-winged doth rove
God's breath, supreme in wrath, omnipotent in love,
To erect against high heaven what hath been man's sole care? —
Lo, here a prison frowns, and there a sepulchre!
On ocean mournful, vast, fell the vast mournful night.
The darkling wind awoke, and urged to hurried flight,
Athwart the granite-crags, above the granite-crests,
Some sails unto their haven, some birds unto their nests.
Sad unto death, I gazed on all the world around.
Oh! how yon sea is vast and the soul of man profound!
Afar St. Michael towered, the wan salt waves amid,
Huge Cheops of the west, the ocean-pyramid.
On Egypt, home of fathomless mysteries, did I brood,
Its sandy desart's grand eternal solitude,
All-darkling camp of kings ne'er stirred by battle-breath,
Planted for aye i' the sombre stricken field of death.
Alas! In even these spots where widest-winged doth rove
God's breath, supreme in wrath, omnipotent in love,
To erect against high heaven what hath been man's sole care? —
Lo, here a prison frowns, and there a sepulchre!
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