“Should gulf him fathom deep in brine;
And hands so often clasp’d in mine,
Should toss with tangle[13] and with shells.”
XI.
This Poem would describe a calm and quiet day in October—late autumn.
No doubt, the scenery described does not refer to Clevedon, but to some Lincolnshire wold, from which the whole range from marsh to the sea was visible.
The stillness of the spot is just broken by the sound of the horse chestnut falling[14] through the dead leaves, and these are reddening to their own fall. No time of the year is more quiet, not even is the insect abroad: the waves just swell and fall noiselessly, and this reminds him of
“The dead calm in that noble breast
Which heaves but with the heaving deep.”
XII.
An ecstacy follows: in which the soul of the Poet seems to mount, like a dove rising into the heavens with a message of woe tied under her wings; and so the disembodied soul leaves its “mortal ark”—“our earthly house of this tabernacle”—(2 Cor. v., 1) and flees away
“O’er ocean-mirrors rounded large”
(the sea line constantly expanding and always being circular), until the ship comes in sight, when it lingers “on the marge,” the edge of the sea, weeping with the piteous cry—