To The Sea: Written On The Beach At Aldborough

Thou awful sea!–upon this shingly beach
Of Aldborough I pace:–my gazing eye
Thy world of waters lost in the dim sky
Admiring, and thy echoing waves, that teach,
In voice of thunder, more than tongue can preach;
The knell of ages past and passing by;
And claim their ancient Empire o’er the dry
And solid Earth; each animating each.
Of towns long sunk, o’er which thy wild waves roar,
Of sea to land, of land to ocean turn’d,
I muse: and mourn, that who could amplest pour
Homeric tones on thy resounding shore
Porson is dead!–That sea of Grecian lore
Unbounded, in the abyss of fate inurn’d.