I love the sea she is my fellow-creature,
My careful purveyor; she provides me store :
She walls me round; she makes my diet greater ;
She wafts my treasure from a foreign shore :
But, Lord of oceans, when compared with Thee,
What is the ocean, or her wealth to me?
To heaven's high city I direct my journey,
Whose spangled suburbs entertain mine eye;
Mine eye, by contemplation's great attorney,
Transcends the crystal pavement of the sky :
But what is heaven, great God, compared to Thee?
Without Thy presence heaven's no heaven to me.
Without Thy presence earth gives no refection;
Without Thy presence sea affords no treasure;
Without Thy presence air's a rank infection;
Without Thy presence heaven itself no pleasure :
If not possess'd, if not enjoy'd in Thee,
What's earth, or sea, or air, or heaven to me?
The highest honours that the world can boast,
Are subjects far too low for my desire;
The brightest beams or glory are (at most)
But dying sparkles of Thy living fire:
The loudest flames that earth can kindle, be
But nightly glow-worms, if compared to Thee.
I love the air: her dainty sweets refresh
My drooping soul, and to new sweets invite me;
Her shrill-mouth'd quire sustain me with their flesh,
And with their polyphonian notes delight me :
But what's the air or all the sweets that she
Can bless my soul withal, compared to Thee?
I love the sea: she is my fellow-creature,
My careful purveyor; she provides me store:
She walls me round; she makes my diet greater;
She wafts my treasure from a foreign shore:
But, Lord of oceans, when compared with Thee,
What is the ocean, or her wealth to me?
To heaven's high city I direct my journey,
Whose spangled suburbs entertain mine eye;
Mine eye, by contemplation's great attorney,
Transcends the crystal pavement of the sky:
But what is heaven, great God, compared to Thee?
Without Thy presence heaven's no heaven to me.
Without Thy presence earth gives no refection;
Without Thy presence sea affords no treasure ;
Without Thy presence air's a rank infection;
Without Thy presence heaven itself no pleasure :
If not possess'd, if not enjoy'd in Thee,
What's earth, or sea, or air, or heaven to me!
The highest honours that the world can boast,
Are subjects far too low for my desire;
The brightest beams of glory are (at most)
But dying sparkles of Thy living fire:
The loudest flames that earth can kindle, be
But nightly glow-worms, if compared to Thee.
Without Thy presence wealth is bags of cares ;
Wisdom but folly; joy disquiet-sadness:
Friendship is treason, and delights are snares;
Pleasures but pain, and mirth but pleasing madness;
Without Thee, Lord, things be not what they be,
Nor have they being, when compared with Thee.
In having all things, and not Thee, what have I?
Not having Thee, what have my labours got?
Let me enjoy but Thee, what further crave I?
And having Thee alone, what have I not?
I wish nor sea nor land; nor would I be
Possess'd of heaven, heaven unpossess'd by Thee.
[WILLIAM BROWNE was born at Tavistock, in Devonshire, in 1590, was educated at Oxford, and entered the Inner Temple, but did not follow the law as a profession. He lived in the family of the Earl of Pembroke, and realized the means of purchasing an estate. He died in 1645.
His best poems were written before he was twenty years of age; and as he published none of them after he was thirty, they contain marks of puerility and imitations of other authors, and are without much vigour.]
Now great Hyperion left his golden throne
That on the dancing waves in glory shone,
|