At Midnight of “All Souls”

I HEAR the rushing of the sea of Time;
Whose mighty waters in their pauseless whelm,
Suck down, resistless, nation, race, and realm,
Like rotting sea-weed, drench'd in ooze and slime.
Ocean! incarnardin'd with countless crime,
Green with drown'd hopes, and wreck of joyous prime;
Salt with the myriad tears of human woes ;
Toss'd with the surge and tumult of earth's throes;
We note thy shifting sands, and pace thy shore ;
We watch thy ebbing tides, and list thy roar,
Heark'ning, with awe, th' innumerable things
Told in thy billowy thunderings;
Until by the coming of our one appointed wave,
We're swept into th' eddy of that universal grave.