'Tis said, fantastic ocean doth enfold The likeness of whate'er on land is seen; But, if the Nereid Sisters and their Queen,[HB] Above whose heads the tide so long hath rolled, The Dames resemble whom we here behold, 5 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] 10 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. In Mrs. Wordsworth's Journal of this Tour on the Continent,--which, in a letter to her daughter Dorothy (dated 20th February 1821), she calls "hasty notes made by snatches during our journey,"--the following occurs:--"Passing through the gates of the city, we had before us a line of white-capped Fish-women, with thin brown faces. The fish very foul, yet at dinner the same sort proved excellent." In Dorothy Wordsworth's Journal of the same Tour, the following occurs:--"Tuesday, 11th July. Calais.--With one consent we stopped to gaze at a group--rather a _line_ of women and girls, seated beside dirty fish baskets under the old gate-way and ramparts--their white night caps, brown and puckered faces, bright eyes, etc. etc., very striking. The arrangements--how unlike those of a fish-market in the South of England!... "Every one is struck with the excessive ugliness (if I may apply the word to any _human_ creatures) of the fish-women of Calais, and _that_ no one can forget."--ED. Henry Crabb Robinson wrote of this sonnet:--"Of the sonnets there is one remarkable and _unique_; the humour and naïveté, and the exquisitely refined sentiment of the Calais fish-women, are a combination of excellencies quite novel." (_Diary, etc._, vol. ii. p. 224.)--ED. VARIANTS: [Footnote 469: 1827. She felt too deeply what her skill must lose. 1822. ] [Footnote 470: 1837. Rydal Mount, January 1822. 1822. ] [Footnote 471: 1837. How terrible beneath the opening waves 1822. ] [Footnote 472: 1822. In grace Earth's fairest Daughters they excel; 1837. The text of 1840 returns to that of 1822. ] [Footnote 473: 1827. Pure unmolested ... 1822. ] FOOTNOTES: