How fearful were it down through opening waves[471]
To sink, and meet them in their fretted caves,
Withered, grotesque, immeasurably old,
And shrill and fierce in accent!—Fear it not:
For they Earth's fairest daughters do excel;[472]
Pure undecaying[473] beauty is their lot;
Their voices into liquid music swell,
Thrilling each pearly cleft and sparry grot,
The undisturbed abodes where Sea-nymphs dwell!
"If in this Sonnet I should seem to have borne a little too hard upon the personal appearance of the worthy Poissardes of Calais, let me take shelter under the authority of my lamented friend, the late Sir George Beaumont. He, a most accurate observer, used to say of them, that their features and countenances seemed to have conformed to those of the creatures they dealt in; at all events the resemblance was striking."—W. W. 1822.