“Calais” [poem]
The sands are in the sunlight sleeping
The ocean barrier is beating a
Again, again for evermore
Haste the light curlings to the shore,
That from the sand the impression sweep
Of playful Childhoods daring feet
That seeks within its sandy cell
The pebble bright, or purple shell 1
Far in its clear expanse, lay wide
Unruffledly that ocean‐tide
Stretching away where paler grew,
And far away indistance dying
Old Englands cliffy coast was lying
And beautiful, as summer cloud
By the low sun empurpled proud
Strange, that a space from shore to shore
So soon, so easily passed oer,
Should yet a wide distinction place
Twixt man and man, twixt race and race
Sudden and marked the change you find
Religion, language even mind 2
That you might think that narrow span
Marked the varieties of man.
The ocean barrier is beating a
Again, again for evermore
Haste the light curlings to the shore,
That from the sand the impression sweep
System generated line number
5Of playful Childhoods daring feet
That seeks within its sandy cell
The pebble bright, or purple shell 1
Far in its clear expanse, lay wide
Unruffledly that ocean‐tide
System generated line number
10Stretching away where paler grew,
A
T
he heavens bright unclouded blue.And far away indistance dying
Old Englands cliffy coast was lying
And beautiful, as summer cloud
System generated line number
15By the low sun empurpled proud
Strange, that a space from shore to shore
So soon, so easily passed oer,
Should yet a wide distinction place
Twixt man and man, twixt race and race
System generated line number
20Sudden and marked the change you find
Religion, language even mind 2
That you might think that narrow span
Marked the varieties of man.