On the Sea

The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats, 1817

It keeps eternal whisperings aroundDesolate shores, and with its mighty swellGluts twice ten thousand caverns, till the spellOf Hecate leaves them their old shadowy sound.Often 't is in such gentle temper found,That scarcely will the very smallest shellBe mov'd for days from where it sometime fell,When last the winds of Heaven were unbound.O ye! who have your eyeballs vex'd and tir'd,Feast them upon the wideness of the Sea;O ye! whose ears are dinn'd with uproar rude,Or fed too much with cloying melody,—Sit ye near some old cavern's mouth, and broodUntil ye start, as if the sea-nymphs quired!

From The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats (1817), via the English Wikisource transcription.

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