Down in the sunless deeps,
Our lost Atlantis sleeps!
Not as she sank below
The deluge long ago.
A star for the bridal drest,
The glory of all the West.
But white in her shrouded rest,
And a chain across her breast.
Shall we weep while the waters roar,
Or work with the Madrepore,
With the nursing fires below,
And the cradling earthquake's throe,
To lift to the light again
Atlantis, from the shroud and chain
Slow dawning out of her grave,
Slow widening over the wave,
From the islet's slender spear
To the bloom of a hemisphere
Whose hills salute the morn
With the pomp and palm and corn,
Whose verdurous valleys shine
With the light of the oil and wine?
Ah! better than yonder hind--
Dazzled by triumph blind,
Whose share hath furrowed the sod
To hillocks that cry to God,
Whose scythe, as it sweeps the grain,
Shines with an evil stain--
To toil in the sunless stain,
Where our lost Atlantis sleeps;
To tarry a thousand years
Till her Angel of Light appears.
