Park Benjamin - New York Harbor lyrics

Is this a painting? Are those pictured clouds Which on the sky so movelessly repose? Has some rare artist fashioned forth the shrouds Of yonder vessel? Are these imaged shows Of outline, figure, form, or is there life— Life with a thousand pulses— in the scene We gaze upon? Those towering banks between, E'er tossed these billows in tumultuous strife? Billows! there's not a wave! the waters spread One broad, unbroken mirror! all around Is hushed to silence,— silence so profound That a bird's carol, or an arrow sped Into the distance, would, like larum bell, Jar the deep stillness and dissolve the spell!