Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.

IV. Inland Waters: Highlands

Dover Cliff

William Shakespeare (1564–1616)

COME on, sir; here ’s the place: stand still!

How fearful

And dizzy ’t is, to cast one’s eyes so low!

The crows and choughs that wing the midway air

Show scarce so gross as beetles: half-way down

Hangs one that gathers samphire,—dreadful trade!

Methinks he seems no bigger than his head:

The fishermen, that walk upon the beach,

Appear like mice; and yon tall anchoring bark,

Diminished to her cock; her cock, a buoy

Almost too small for sight: the murmuring surge,

That on the unnumbered idle pebbles chafes,

Cannot be heard so high.—I ’ll look no more;

Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight

Topple down headlong.