FOOTNOTES:
[787] Compare the previous poem.—Ed.
[788] Compare Robert Browning's Home-thoughts from the Sea—
While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.—Ed.
[789] See Young's Night Thoughts, book ii. l. 95.—Ed.
COMPOSED BY THE SEA-SHORE
Composed 1834.—Published 1845
[These lines were suggested during my residence under my son's roof at Moresby, on the coast near Whitehaven, at the time when I was composing those verses among the "Evening Voluntaries" that have reference to the sea. It was in that neighbourhood I first became acquainted with the ocean and its appearances and movements. My infancy and early childhood were passed at Cockermouth, about eight miles from the coast, and I well remember that mysterious awe with which I used to listen to anything said about storms and shipwrecks. Sea-shells of many descriptions were common in the town; and I was not a little surprised when I heard that Mr. Landor[790] had denounced me as a plagiarist from himself for having described a boy applying a sea-shell to his ear and listening to it for intimations of what was going on in its native element. This I had done myself scores of times, and it was a belief among us that we could know from the sound whether the tide was ebbing or flowing.—I.F.]
One of the "Evening Voluntaries."—Ed.