Poem by Robert Seymour Bridges

Shorter Poems. Book I. 12. “Who Has Not Walked upon the Shore”

Who has not walked upon the shore,
And who does not the morning know,
The day the angry gale is o’er,
The hour the wind has ceased to blow?

The horses of the strong south-west
Are pastured round his tropic tent,
Careless how long the ocean’s breast
Sob on and sigh for passion spent.

The frightened birds, that fled inland
To house in rock and tower and tree,
Are gathering on the peaceful strand,
To tempt again the sunny sea;

Whereon the timid ships steal out
And laugh to find their foe asleep,
That lately scattered them about,
And drave them to the fold like sheep.

The snow-white clouds he northward chased
Break into phalanx, line, and band:
All one way to the south they haste,
The south, their pleasant fatherland.

From distant hills their shadows creep,
Arrive in turn and mount the lea,
And flit across the downs, and leap
Sheer off the cliff upon the sea;

And sail and sail far out of sight.
But still I watch their fleecy trains,
That piling all the south with light,
Dapple in France the fertile plains.

1. Shorter Poems. Book V. 15. “The north wind came up yesternight”
2. Shorter Poems. Book IV. 30. Laus Deo
3. Shorter Poems. Book II. 8. Spring. Ode I
4. Shorter Poems. Book III. 1. “O My Vague Desires!”
5. Shorter Poems. Book III. 4. On a Dead Child

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