E'en fishes there, high cast upon the shore,
Yet pant with life and stain the rocks with gore.
Would here the curious eye expect to meet
Aught precious in the sands beneath his feet,
Ores, gems, or crystals, fitting for the case,
No spot affords so poor, so drear a place.
Rough rounded stones, the sport of every wind,
Is all th' inquirer shall with caution find.
A beach unvaried spreads before the eye;
Drear is the land and stormy is the sky.
Would the fixed eye, that dotes on sylvan scenes,
Draw pleasure from these dark funereal greens,
These stunted cedars and low scraggy pines,
Where nature stagnates and the soil repines--
Alas! the source is small--small every bliss,
That e'er can dwell on such a place as this.
Bleak, barren, sandy, dreary, and confined,
Bathed by the waves and chilled by every wind;
Without a flower to beautify the scene,
Without a cultured shore--a shady green--
Without a harbor on a dangerous shore,
Without a friend to joy with or deplore.
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