I have found a grassy niche Hollowed in a seaside hill, As if the ocean-grandeur which Is aspectable from the place, Had struck the hill as with a mace Sudden and cleaving. You might fill That little nook with the little cloud Which sometimes lieth by the moon To beautify a night of June; A cavelike nook which, opening all To the wide sea, is disallowed From its own earth's sweet pastoral: Cavelike, but roofless overhead And made of verdant banks instead Of any rocks, with flowerets spread Instead of spar and stalactite, Cowslips and daisies gold and white: Such pretty flowers on such green sward, You think the sea they look toward Doth serve them for another sky As warm and blue as that on high. VIII. And in this hollow is a seat, And when you shall have crept to it, Slipping down the banks too steep To be o'erbrowzèd by the sheep, Do not think--though at your feet The cliffs disrupt--you shall behold The line where earth and ocean meet; You sit too much above to view The solemn confluence of the two: You can hear them as they greet, You can hear that evermore Distance-softened noise more old Than Nereid's singing, the tide spent Joining soft issues with the shore In harmony of discontent, And when you hearken to the grave Lamenting of the underwave, You must believe in earth's communion Albeit you witness not the union. IX. Except that sound, the place is full Of silences, which when you cull By any word, it thrills you so That presently you let them grow To meditation's fullest length Across your soul with a soul's strength: And as they touch your soul, they borrow Both of its grandeur and its sorrow, That deathly odour which the clay Leaves on its deathlessness alwày. X. Alway! alway? must this be? Rapid Soul from city gone, Dost thou carry inwardly What doth make the city's moan? Must this deep sigh of thine own Haunt thee with humanity? Green visioned banks that are too steep To be o'erbrowzèd by the sheep, May all sad thoughts adown you creep Without a shepherd? Mighty sea, Can we dwarf thy magnitude And fit it to our straitest mood? O fair, fair Nature, are we thus Impotent and querulous Among thy workings glorious, Wealth and sanctities, that still Leave us vacant and defiled And wailing like a soft-kissed child, Kissed soft against his will? XI.