Classic Poem

How, in this castled battlement that stands
A grim and ghastly giant o'er the sea,
As if to guard the subject smiling lands,
Safe kept in meet subjection, and so free, —
How, with a silent sadness do I love,
When night winds all unfetter'd fly abroad,
And the pale moon, in peerless car above,
Moves onward like some melancholy god,
In very sadness of sublimity,
Bemoaning the great state which makes him lone;
How do I love to watch above the deep,
To hear winds whistle and the surges sweep,
And share the sadness and the silence then,
More full of speech for Thought than crowds of men; —
And drink in lessons of the great expanse,
That teaches still the far Eternity;
The world itself laid bare beneath the glance,
And all made subject to the soul and eye:
While still with choir of storm the great sea rolls
Its anthem, fitting conflicts of great souls;
A mighty heart of passion; even in sleep
Heaving with saddest moans, that show the strife how deep.