g, as motionless and still, far off,
In the pale haze, between the sea and sky.
She seems the ship--the very ship I saw
In infancy, and in that very place,
Whilst I, and all around me, have grown old
Since she was first descried; and there she sits,
A solitary thing of the wide main--
As she sat years ago. Yet she moves on:-- 20
To-morrow all may be one waste of waves!
Where is she bound? We know not; and no voice 22
Will tell us where. Perhaps she beats her way
Slow up the channel, after many years,
Returning from some distant clime, or lands,
Beyond the Atlantic! Oh! what anxious eyes
Count every nearer surge that heaves around!
How many anxious hearts this moment beat
With thronging thoughts of home, till those fixed eyes,
Intensely fixed upon these very hills, 30
Are filled with tears! Perhaps she wanders on--
On--on--into the world of the vast sea,
There to be lost: never, with homeward sails,
Destined to greet these far-seen hills again,
Now fading into mist! So let her speed,
And we will pray she may return in joy,
When every storm is past! Such is this sea,
That shows one wandering ship! How different smile
The sea-scenes of the south; and chiefly thine,
Waters of loveliest Hampton, chiefly thine-- 40
Where I have passed the happiest hours of youth--
Waters of loveliest Hampton! Thy gray walls,
And loop-hooled battlements, cast the same shade
Upon the light blue wave, as when of yore,
Beneath their arch, King Canute sat,[74] and chid
The tide, that came regardless to his feet,
A thousand years ago. Oh! how unlike
Yon solitary sea, the summer shines,
There, while a crowd of glancing vessels glide,
Filled with the young and gay, and pennants wave, 50
And sails, at distance, beautifully swell
To the light breeze, or pass, like butterflies,
Amid the smoking steamers. And, oh look!--
Look! what a fairy lady is that yacht
That turns the wooded point, and silently 55
Streams up the sylvan Itchin; silently--
And yet as if she said, as she went on,
Who does not gaze at me!
Yon winding sands
Were solitary once, as the wide sea. 60
Such I remember them! No sound was heard,