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Home  »  English Poetry II  »  414. Dover Cliffs

English Poetry II: From Collins to Fitzgerald.
The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.

William Lisle Bowles

414. Dover Cliffs


ON these white cliffs, that calm above the flood

Uplift their shadowy heads, and at their feet

Scarce hear the surge that has for ages beat,

Sure many a lonely wanderer has stood;

And while the distant murmur met his ear,

And o’er the distant billows the still eve

Sailed slow, has thought of all his heart must leave

To-morrow; of the friends he loved most dear;

Of social scenes from which he wept to part.

But if, like me, he knew how fruitless all

The thoughts that would full fain the past recall;

Soon would he quell the risings of his heart,

And brave the wild winds and unhearing tide,

The world his country, and his God his guide.