To wait for certain hours the tide’s delay;

At the same time the same dull views to see,

The bounding marsh-bank and the blighted tree;

The water only, when the tides were high,

When low, the mud half cover’d and half-dry;

The sun-burnt tar that blisters on the planks,

And bank-side stakes in their uneven ranks;

Heaps of entangled weeds that slowly float,

As the tide rolls by the impeded boat.

When tides were neap, and, in the sultry day,