Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Oceanica: Vol. XXXI. 1876–79.

Miscellaneous: The Ocean

The Sea-Shore

By 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

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!

Methinks, when tempests come and kiss the ocean,

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

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!