| |
| IF ever sea-maid, from her coral cave, | |
| Beneath the hum of the great surge, has loved | |
| To pass delighted from her green abode, | |
| And, seated on a summer bank, to sing | |
| No earthly music; in a spot like this | 5 |
| The bard might feign he heard her, as she dried | |
| Her golden hair, yet dripping from the main, | |
In the slant sunbeam.
So the pensive bard | |
| Might image, warmed by this enchanting scene, | |
| The ideal form; but though such things are not, | 10 |
| He who has ever felt a thought refined; | |
| He who has wandered on the sea of life, | |
| Forming delightful visions of a home | |
| Of beauty and repose; he who has loved | |
| With filial warmth his country, will not pass | 15 |
| Without a look of more than tenderness | |
| On all the scene; from where the pensile birch | |
| Bends on the bank, amid the clustered group | |
| Of the dark hollies; to the woody shore | |
| That steals diminished, to the distant spires | 20 |
| Of Hampton, crowning the long lucid wave. | |
| White in the sun beneath the forest-shade | |
| Full shines the frequent sail, like Vanity, | |
| As she goes onward in her glittering trim, | |
| Amid the glances of life’s transient morn, | 25 |
Calling on all to view her!
Vectis 1 there, | |
| That slopes its greensward to the lambent wave | |
| And shows through softest haze its woods and domes, | |
| With gray St. Catherine’s creeping to the sky, | |
| Seems like a modest maid, who charms the more | 30 |
Concealing half her beauties.
To the east, | |
| Proud, yet complacent, on its subject realm, | |
| With masts innumerable thronged, and hulls | |
| Seen indistinct, but formidable, mark | |
| Albion’s vast fleet, that, like the impatient storm, | 35 |
| Waits but the word to thunder and flash death | |
| On him who dares approach to violate | |
| The shores and living scenes that smile secure | |
Beneath its dragon-watch!
Long may they smile! | |
| And long, majestic Albion (while the sound | 40 |
| From East to West, from Albis to the Po, | |
| Of dark contention hurtles), mayst thou rest, | |
| As calm and beautiful this sylvan scene | |
| Looks on the refluent ware that steals below. | |
