The Atlantic Cable

This giant nerve, at whose command
The world’s great pulses throb or sleep,--
It threads the undiscerned repose
Of the dark bases of the deep.

Around it settle in the calm
Fine tissues that a breath might mar,
Nor dream what fiery tidings pass,
What messages of storm and war.

Far over it, where filtered gleams
Faintly illume the mid-sea day,
Strange, pallid forms of fish or weed
In the obscure tide softly sway.

And higher, where the vagrant waves
Frequent the white, indifferent sun,
Where ride the smoke-blue hordes of rain
And the long vapors lift and run,

Passes perhaps some lonely ship
With exile hearts that homeward ache,--
While far beneath is flashed a word
That soon shall bid them bleed or break.