Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Oceanica: Vol. XXXI. 1876–79. | | | | Miscellaneous: The Ocean | | The Sea-Shore | | Bryan Waller Procter (1787–1874) |
| | | METHINKS I fain would lie by the lone sea, | |
| And hear the waters their white music weave! | |
| Methinks it were a pleasant thing to grieve, | |
| So that our sorrows might companioned be | |
| By that strange harmony | 5 |
| Of winds and billows, and the living sound | |
| Sent down from heaven when the thunder speaks, | |
| Unto the listening shores and torrent creeks, | |
| When the swollen sea doth strive to burst his bound! | |
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| Methinks, when tempests come and kiss the ocean, | 10 |
| Until the vast and terrible billows wake, | |
| I see the writhing of that curléd snake, | |
| Which men of old believed,—and my emotion | |
| Warreth within me, till the fable reigns | |
| God of my fancy, and my curdling veins | 15 |
| Do homage to that serpent old, | |
| Which clasped the great world in its fold, | |
| And brooded over earth, and the charmed sea, | |
| Like endless, restless, drear Eternity! | | | | |
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