This earth we tread on is thy work, O sea!
The architect was thou ; 'twas thou didst lay
The strong unseen foundations: day by day
Within thy bosom imperceptibly
The fabric grew of continents to be;
And men shall live and build and breed and sleep
Where now the waves are rolling fathoms deep,
And little heed perchance will take of thee
And all thy patient toil: but some there are
To whom, although old Neptune and his train
Are banished from the deeps to realms afar,
The voice of those laborious waves of thine,
The tireless toilers of the fruitful main,
Is not less awful and not less divine.