Past are three summers since she first beheld The ocean; all around the child await Some exclamation of amazement here. She coldly said, her long-lasht eyes abased, Is this the mighty ocean? is this all? That wondrous soul Charoba once possest, Capacious, then, as earth or heaven could hold, Soul discontented with capacity, Is gone (I fear) forever. Need I say She was enchanted by the wicked spells Of Gebir, whom with lust of power inflamed The western winds have landed on our coast? I since have watcht her in lone retreat, Have heard her sigh and soften out the name.2
I strove with none, for none was worth my strife; Nature I loved; and next to Nature, Art. I warmd both hands against the fire of life; It sinks, and I am ready to depart.
Poor shell! that Wordsworth so pounded and flattened in his marsh it no longer had the hoarseness of a sea, but of a hospital.Walter Savage Landor: Letter to John Forster. [back]
Note 2. These lines were specially singled out for admiration by Shelley, Humphrey Davy, Scott, and many remarkable men.Forster: Life of Landor, vol. i. p. 95. [back]