| Nicholson & Lee, eds. The Oxford Book of English Mystical Verse. 1917. |
| |
| 272. Lindisfarne |
| By Herbert Trench (b. 1865) |
| |
| OUR seer, the net-mender, | |
| The day that he died | |
| Looked out to the seaward | |
| At ebb of the tide; | |
| Gulls drove like the snow | 5 |
| Over bight, over barn, | |
| As he sang to the ebb | |
| On the rock Lindisfarne: | |
| ‘Hail, thou blue ebbing! | |
| The breakers are gone | 10 |
| From the stormy coast-islet | |
| Bethundered and lone! | |
| Hail, thou wide shrinking | |
| Of foam and of bubble— | |
| The reefs are laid bare | 15 |
| And far off is the trouble! | |
| For through this retreating | |
| As soft as a smile, | |
| The isle of the flood | |
| Is no longer an isle.… | 20 |
| |
| By the silvery isthmus | |
| Of sands that uncover, | |
| Now feet as of angels | |
| Come delicate over— | |
| The fluttering children | 25 |
| Flee happily over! | |
| To the beach of the mainland | |
| Return is now clear, | |
| The old travel thither | |
| Dry-shod, without fear.… | 30 |
| |
| And now, at the wane, | |
| When foundations expand, | |
| Doth the isle of the soul, | |
| Lindisfarne, understand | |
| She stretcheth to vastness | 35 |
| Made one with the land!’ | |
|
|
