Thrice-blest, alone with Nature!—here, where gray
Belerium fronts the spray
Smiting the bastion'd crags through centuries flown,
While, 'neath the hissing surge,
Ocean sends up a deep, deep undertone,
As though his heavy chariot-wheels went round:
Nor is there other sound
Save from the abyss of air, a plaintive note,
The seabirds' calling cry,
As 'gainst the wind with well-poised weight they float,
Or on some white-fringed reef set up their post,
And sentinel the coast:—
Whilst, round each jutting cape, in pillar'd file,
The lichen-bearded rocks
Like hoary giants guard the sacred Isle.
—Happy, alone with Nature thus!—Yet here
Dim, primal man is near;—
The hawk-eyed eager traders, who of yore
Through long Biscayan waves
Star-steer'd adventurous from the Iberic shore
Or the Sidonian, with their fragrant freight
Oil-olive, fig, and date;
Jars of dark sunburnt wine, flax-woven robes,
Or Tyrian azure glass
Wavy with gold, and agate-banded globes:—
Changing for amber-knobs their Eastern ware
Or tin-sand silvery fair,
To temper brazen swords, or rim the shield
Of heroes, arm'd for fight:—
While the rough miners, wondering, gladly yield
The treasured ore; nor Alexander's name
Know, nor fair Helen's shame;
Or in his tent how Peleus' wrathful son
Looks toward the sea, nor heeds
The towers of still-unconquer'd Ilion.