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Home  »  Poems of Places An Anthology in 31 Volumes  »  Written at Tynemouth, Northumberland, after a Tempestuous Voyage

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.

Tynemouth

Written at Tynemouth, Northumberland, after a Tempestuous Voyage

By William Lisle Bowles (1762–1850)

AS slow I climb the cliff’s ascending side,

Much musing on the track of terror past,

When o’er the dark wave rode the howling blast,

Pleased I look back, and view the tranquil tide

That laves the pebbled shore; and now the beam

Of evening smiles on the gray battlement,

And yon forsaken tower that time has rent;—

The lifted oar far off with silver gleam

Is touched, and hushed is all the billowy deep!

Soothed by the scene, thus on tired Nature’s breast

A stillness slowly steals, and kindred rest;

While sea-sounds lull her, as she sinks to sleep,

Like melodies which mourn upon the lyre,

Waked by the breeze, and, as they mourn, expire!