Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
France: Vols. IX–X. 1876–79. | | | | Calais | | Fish-women | | William Wordsworth (1770–1850) |
| | On Landing at Calais
’T IS said, fantastic ocean doth enfold | |
| The likeness of whate’er on land is seen; | |
| But if the Nereid sisters and their queen, | |
| Above whose heads the tide so long hath rolled, | |
| The dames resemble whom we here behold, | 5 |
| How fearful were it down through opening waves | |
| To sink, and meet them in their fretted caves, | |
| Withered, grotesque, immeasurably old, | |
| And shrill and fierce in accent! Fear it not: | |
| For they earth’s fairest daughters do excel; | 10 |
| Pure, undecaying beauty is their lot; | |
| Their voices into liquid music swell, | |
| Thrilling each pearly cleft and sparry grot, | |
| The undisturbed abodes where sea-nymphs dwell! | | | | |
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