Sweetness was brought for her forth of the bitter
  Sea’s strength, and light of the deep sea’s dark,
From where green lawns on Alderney glitter
  To the bastioned crags of the steeps of Sark. 
These she knew from afar beholden,
  And marvelled haply what life would be
On moors that sunset and dawn leave golden,
      In dells that smile on the sea.

And forth she fared as a stout-souled rover,
  For a brief blithe raid on the bounding brine: 
And light winds ferried her light bark over
  To the lone soft island of fair-limbed kine. 
But the league-long length of its wild green border,
  And the small bright streets of serene St. Anne,
Perplexed her sense with a strange disorder
      At sight of the works of man.

The world was here, and the world’s confusion,
  And the dust of the wheels of revolving life,
Pain, labour, change, and the fierce illusion
  Of strife more vain than the sea’s old strife. 
And her heart within her was vexed, and dizzy
  The sense of her soul as a wheel that whirled: 
She might not endure for a space that busy
      Loud coil of the troublous world.

Too full, she said, was the world of trouble,
  Too dense with noise of contentious things,
And shews less bright than the blithe foam’s bubble
  As home she fared on the smooth wind’s wings. 
For joy grows loftier in air more lonely,
  Where only the sea’s brood fain would be;
Where only the heart may receive in it only
      The love of the heart of the sea.

A BALLAD OF SARK.

High beyond the granite portal arched across
  Like the gateway of some godlike giant’s hold
Sweep and swell the billowy breasts of moor and moss
  East and westward, and the dell their slopes enfold
  Basks in purple, glows in green, exults in gold
Glens that know the dove and fells that hear the lark
Fill with joy the rapturous island, as an ark
  Full of spicery wrought from herb and flower and tree. 
None would dream that grief even here may disembark
  On the wrathful woful marge of earth and sea.

Rocks emblazoned like the mid shield’s royal boss
  Take the sun with all their blossom broad and bold. 
None would dream that all this moorland’s glow and gloss
  Could be dark as tombs that strike the spirit acold
  Even in eyes that opened here, and here behold
Now no sun relume from hope’s belated spark
Any comfort, nor may ears of mourners hark
  Though the ripe woods ring with golden-throated glee,
While the soul lies shattered, like a stranded bark
  On the wrathful woful marge of earth and sea.