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Home  »  The Oxford Book of English Verse  »  598. For Music

Arthur Quiller-Couch, ed. 1919. The Oxford Book of English Verse: 1250–1900.

George Gordon Byron, Lord Byron. 1788–1824

598. For Music

THERE be none of Beauty’s daughters 
  With a magic like thee; 
And like music on the waters 
  Is thy sweet voice to me: 
When, as if its sound were causing         5
The charmèd ocean’s pausing, 
The waves lie still and gleaming, 
And the lull’d winds seem dreaming: 
 
And the midnight moon is weaving 
  Her bright chain o’er the deep;  10
Whose breast is gently heaving, 
  As an infant’s asleep: 
So the spirit bows before thee, 
To listen and adore thee; 
With a full but soft emotion,  15
Like the swell of Summer’s ocean.