The Triumphant Shore

Triumphant shore!
Upon your streaming wastes,
And in your surging plains,
An immortal grandeur
And a giant terror.
There, in the depths of your dread womb,
And in the deserts of your spacious breast,
The wrecks of ships
And the remains of buried dead...
And these giant cities of iron,
Whose maker swells with pride
Till he sets himself up as lord over you,
Are nothing but a plaything
That melts away in your dread, foaming current.

O sea, these are your coasts:
Phoenicia, and Assyria,
And Greece, and Rome, and Carthage —
They were great states, and they passed away,
And you remain still, O shore.

You had bestowed upon these vanished states
Grandeur and strength and glory,
And endowed them with might and vigor and youth,
And granted their conquerors power and dominion;
And your waves danced for delight
Upon their shoulders
In the days of their bloom and their pride,
As your waters wept over them
On the day of their abasement and their ruin...
And you are still fresh of skin,
New... even now.

O blue and quivering one!
Clamor as you will,
And surge in the embroidery of the foam,
For in vain do the fleets ride over you;
You are a giant sultan:
O triumphant shore...