Page:Studies in Song - Swinburne (1880).djvu/177

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BY THE NORTH SEA.

I.


i.

A land that is lonelier than ruin;

A sea that is stranger than death:
Far fields that a rose never blew in,
Wan waste where the winds lack breath;
Waste endless and boundless and flowerless
But of marsh-blossoms fruitless as free:
Where earth lies exhausted, as powerless
To strive with the sea.