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Home  »  Poems of Places An Anthology in 31 Volumes  »  By the Sea-Shore

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

Isle of Man

By the Sea-Shore

By William Wordsworth (1770–1850)

WHY stand we gazing on the sparkling brine,

With wonder smit by its transparency,

And all enraptured with its purity?—

Because the unstained, the clear, the crystalline

Have ever in them something of benign;

Whether in gem, in water, or in sky,

A sleeping infant’s brow, or wakeful eye

Of a young maiden, only not divine.

Scarcely the hand forbears to dip its palm

For beverage drawn as from a mountain well.

Temptation centres in the liquid calm;

Our daily raiment seems no obstacle

To instantaneous plunging in, deep sea!

And revelling in long embrace with thee.