To Marguerite, In Returning A Volume Of The Letters Of Ortis

Yes: in the sea of life enisld,     With echoing straits between us thrown,     Dotting the shoreless watery wild,     We mortal millions live alone.     The islands feel the enclasping flow,     And then their endless bounds they know.     But when the moon their hollows lights,     And they are swept by balms of spring,     And in their glens, on starry nights,     The nightingales divinely sing;     And lovely notes, from shore to shore,     Across the sounds and channels pour     Oh! then a longing like despair     Is to their farthest caverns sent;     For surely once, they feel, we were     Parts of a single continent!     Now round us spreads the watery plain     Oh might our marges meet again!     Who orderd, that their longings fire     Should be, as soon as kindled, coold?     Who renders vain their deep desire?     A God, a God their severance ruld!     And bade betwixt their shores to be     The unplumbd, salt, estranging sea.