| Arthur Quiller-Couch, comp. The Oxford Book of Victorian Verse. 1922. | | | | The Swimmer | | By Roden Berkeley Wriothesley Noel (1834–1894) |
| | | WHO would linger idle, | |
| Dallying would lie, | |
| When wind and wave, a bridal | |
| Celebrating, fly? | |
| Let him plunge among them, | 5 |
| Who hath woo’d enough, | |
| Flirted with them, sung them! | |
| In the salt sea-trough | |
| He may win them, onward | |
| On a buoyant crest, | 10 |
| Far to seaward, sunward, | |
| Ocean-borne to rest! | |
| Wild wind will sing over him, | |
| And the free foam cover him, | |
| Swimming seaward, sunward, | 15 |
| On a blithe sea-breast! | |
| On a blithe sea-bosom | |
| Swims another too, | |
| Swims a live sea-blossom, | |
| A grey-wing’d seamew! | 20 |
| Grape-green all the waves are, | |
| By whose hurrying line | |
| Half of ships and caves are | |
| Buried under brine; | |
| Supple, shifting ranges | 25 |
| Lucent at the crest, | |
| With pearly surface-changes | |
| Never laid to rest: | |
| Now a dripping gunwale | |
| Momently he sees, | 30 |
| Now a fuming funnel, | |
| Or red flag in the breeze. | |
| Arms flung open wide, | |
| Lip the laughing sea: | |
| For playfellow, for bride, | 35 |
| Claim her impetuously! | | | | |
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