Page:Selections from the American poets (IA selectamerpoet00bryarich).pdf/110

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WILLIAM GILMORE SIMMS.
 Leon. Now, now, thou hast it there:Thou dost not longer question. It is there.
Spirit sings.
O'er the wide world of ocean My home is afar,Beyond its commotion, I laugh at its war;Yet by destiny bidden, I cannot deny,All night I have ridden From my home in the sky.
In the billow before thee My form is conceal'd,In the breath that comes o'er thee My thought is reveal'd;Strown thickly beneath me The coral rocks grow,And the waves that enwreath me Are working thee we.
 Leon. Did'st hear the strain it utter'd, Isabel? Isa. All, all! It spoke, methought, of peril near,From rocks and wiles of the ocean: did it not? Leon. It did, but idly! Here can lurk no rocks;For, by the chart which now before me lies,Thy own impractised eye may well discernThe wide extent of the ocean—shoreless all.The land, for many a league, to th' eastward hangs,And not a point beside it. Isa. Wherefore, then,Should come this voice of warning? Leon. From the deep:It hath its demons as the earth and air,All tributaries to the master-fiendThat sets their springs in motion. This is one,That, doubting to mislead us, plants this wile,So to divert our course, that we may strikeThe very rocks be fain would warn us from.
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