Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

Willing to Die. – To the Reader

         The sinking sun askance, 
                  Spreads a dull glare, 
                  Through evening air;
         And, in a happy trance, 
                  Forest and wave, and white cliff stand, 
                  Like an enchanted sea and land. 

         The sea-breeze wakens clear and cold, 
                  Over the azure wide;
         Before whose breath, in threads of gold, 
                  The ruddy ripples glide, 
         And chasing, break and mingle; 
                  While clear as bells, 
                  Each wavelet tells, 
         O'er the stones on the hollow shingle.

         The rising of winds and the fall of the waves!
         I love the music of shingle and caves. 
         And the billows that travel so far to die. 
         In foam, on the loved shore where they lie. 
         I lean my cold cheek on my hand;
                  And as a child, with open eyes, 
                  Listens, in a dim surprise, 
                  To some high story 
                  Of grief and glory,
         It cannot understand;
         So, like that child, 
         To meanings of a music wild,
         I listen, in a rapture lonely, 
         Not understanding, listening only, 
         To a story not for me; 
                  And let my fancies come and go, 
                  And fall and flow, 
         With the eternal sea.