And Thou, vast Ocean! on whose awful face Time’s iron feet can print no ruin-trace, By breezes lull’d, or by the storm-blasts driv’n, Thy majesty uplifts the mind to heaven.

The speaker apostrophizes the ocean as a sublime, quasi-eternal presence whose surface bears no lasting mark from “Time’s iron feet.” Whether calm (“by breezes lull’d”) or violent (“storm-blasts driv’n”), the sea’s scale and power exceed ordinary human measures and prompt a religious or metaphysical ascent: its “majesty” lifts thought toward heaven. The passage participates in a Romantic-era tradition of the sublime, where overwhelming natural phenomena both humble the observer and awaken spiritual reflection. The ocean becomes a symbol of permanence amid human transience, and of a creation whose grandeur points beyond itself to the divine.