Viewing the rough black sea
With eyes to tempests strange,” etc.
So true, so simple! We are not much nearer to simplex munditiis than before. Martin is not here at his best, and Francis is unusually successful: “dress’d with careless art” and “consecrate the pictured storm” are felicities he does not always attain. Prout is chiefly noticeable for yielding to the almost irresistible temptation of a false beacon in intentata nites:
“I the false light forswear,
A shipwreck’d mariner”;
and Leigh Hunt’s, though but a paraphrase, is surely a very happy one:
“For whom are bound thy tresses bright
With unconcern so exquisite?”
and
“Though now the sunshine hour beguiles