Classic Poem

Methinks , I fain would lie by the lone Sea,
And hear the waters their white music weave!
Methinks it were a pleasant thing to grieve,
So that our sorrows might companioned be
By that strange harmony
Of winds and billows, and the living sound,
Sent down from Heaven, when the Thunder speaks
Unto the listening shores and torrent creeks,
While the swoll'n Sea doth strive to burst his bound!

Methinks, when Tempests come and smite the Ocean,
Until the vast and terrible billows wake,
I see the writhing of that curled snake,
Which men of old believed, — and my emotion
Warreth within me, till the fable reigns
God of my fancy, and my curdling veins
Do homage to that serpent old,
Which clasped the great world in its fold,
And brooded over earth, and the charmed sea,
Like endless, restless, drear Eternity!