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"Naraka—Niflheim—Tartarus—or Tophet!
From what dead heart and poor unpicturing brain,—
Too dull to see or realize
Its own demoniac phantasies—
Of Bonze, Skald, Brahman, talapoin, or prophet—
Goth, Syrian. Greek, or old Hindu,
Of Aryan or Semitic strain—
Came singly or from all upgrew
That rank arch-blasphemy and dream insane
Of torture-gulfs where Infinite Love
All human guess or gauge above
Preserves in fiery suffocation
The myriads of its own creation?
I care not—I; but when came
On deck in darkness yesternight,
That very place appeared to be
Laid bare before my startled sight:
For far and wide in pale effulgence dire,
One boundless ghastly welter of white fire,
The Ocean rolled; a hoary Sea
Of awful incandescence rolled and broke away
In bursts of fire spray—tongues of lambent flame
That writhed and tossed in burning play,
And with a baleful glare
Put out the stars—quenched what mild radiance fell
From the clear skies, as that unhallowed spell
Of blighting Superstition can outblaze
With its fierce coruscations of despair
The genuine rays
page 75 Of light from Heaven that fall like dew,
Divine illuminings serene and true.
And yet such thoughts did ill beseem
This vision—so would any deem,
And other lore and wiser learn,
Who o'er the taffrail marked the excess
And marvel of the loveliness
Of those swift-whirling volumes of soft light
Fast-flashing with gold star-drops sparkling bright
In myriads through the alabaster glow—
Those spangled gyres and wreaths of dazzling snow
That still in wide expanding trail
Went roaring off her stern
So grandly as our Vessel through
The surging phosphorescence flew,
Streaming behind her, as the snowy plumes
Of those rich birds the Aztecs old
Reared at their royal Town of Gold,
Stream when at dusk they slowly sail
Streaking the depth of Amazonian glooms.
Ah! surely no sound heart these glories seeing
Would thence derive the notion of a Being
Creating only to destroy;
Or framing Phlegethons and fire-washed caves
Swarming with frenzied Spirits thicker than these waves
With millions of medusae all alight with joy!"