dots-menu
×

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
England: Vols. I–IV. 1876–79.

Dover

Dover Cliffs

By William Lisle Bowles (1762–1850)

(From Banwell Hill)

ON these white cliffs, that calm above the flood

Uprear their shadowing heads, and at their feet

Hear not the surge that has for ages beat,

How many a lonely wanderer has stood!

And, whilst the lifted murmurs 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!

Oh! 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.