I. YOUTH

    I LOVE to watch the world from here, for all The numberless living portraits that are drawn¹ Upon the mind. Far over is the sea, Fronting the sand, a few great yellow dunes², A salt marsh³ stumbling after, rank and green, With brackish⁴ gullies wandering in between, All this from the hill. And more： a clump⁶ of dwarfed⁷ and twisted cedars⁸, Sentinels over the marsh, and bright with the sun A field of daises wandering in the wind As though a hidden serpent glided⁹ through, A broken wall, a new-plowed field, and then The dusty road and the abodes¹⁰ of men Surrounding the hill. How small the enclosure is wherein there lives Each phase and passion of life, the distant sail Dips in the limpid¹¹ bosom¹² of the sea, >From that far place to where in state the turf Raises a throne for me upon the hill, Each little love and lust¹³ of a living thing Can thus be compassed in a rainbow ring And seen from the hill.

    II. AGE

    Why did I build my cottage on a hill Facing the sea？

    Why did I plan each terraced lawn to slope Down to the deep blue billowy breast of hope, Surging and sweeping¹⁴, laughing and leaping, Tumbling its garments of foam¹⁵ upon the shore, Rustling¹⁶ the sands that know my step no more, I should have found a valley, deep and still, To shelter me.

    There flows the river, and it seems asleep So far away, Yet I remember whip of wave and roar Of wind that rose and smote¹⁸ against the oar¹⁷, Smote and retreated, Proud but defeated, While I rejoiced and rowed into the brine, Drawing on wet and heavy -straining line The great cod¹⁹ quivering from the deep As counterplay. What is the solace²⁰ of these hills and vales That rise and fall？ What is there glorious in the greenwood glen, Or twittering thrush or wing of darting²¹ wren²²？ Give me the gusty²³, Raucous²⁴ and rusty²⁵ Call of the sea gull⁵ in the echoing sky, The wild shriek²⁶ of the winds that cannot die, Give me the life that follows the bending sails, Or none at all！