| Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867. | | | | III. By the Sea-shore | | By Henry Ellison (1811–1880) |
| | | HERE sit I, like some god of the old prime, | |
| Just wakened into divine consciousness; | |
| Like Neptune, when his great hand did caress | |
| The Ocean’s mane first, at the dawn of Time, | |
| Ere his dread name had passed into a rhyme! | 5 |
| Here sit I, while the sea with wavy stress | |
| And emphasis, and utterance nothing less | |
| Than epic, lends a voice to thoughts sublime! | |
| Here sit I, musing upon things to come | |
| Beyond all reach of mortal eloquence; | 10 |
| Till, unto that which had but struck me dumb, | |
| The great Sea, giving articulate sound and sense, | |
| Sublimes the mighty but confuséd hum | |
| Into a voice as of Omnipotence! | | | | |
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