Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes. England: Vols. IIV. 187679. | | Dover | The Cliffs | William Shakespeare (15641616) |
| THERE is a cliff whose high and bending head | |
Looks fearfully in the confinéd deep. * * * * * | |
Come on, sir; here s the place;stand still. How fearful | |
And dizzy t is, to cast ones eyes so low! | |
The crows and choughs, that wing the midway air, | 5 |
Show scarce so gross as beetles: half-way down | |
Hangs one that gathers samphire: dreadful trade! | |
Methinks he seems no bigger than his head: | |
The fishermen, that walk upon the beach, | |
Appear like mice; and yond tall anchoring bark | 10 |
Diminished to her cock; her cock, a buoy | |
Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge, | |
That on the unnumbered idle pebbles chafes, | |
Cannot be heard so high:I ll look no more; | |
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight | 15 |
Topple down headlong. * * * * * | |
From the dread summit of this chalky bourn | |
Look up a-height; the shrill-gorged lark so far | |
Cannot be seen or heard. | | | |
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