Night, on the Sea-shore



I have fled from all, and none can now

   My way, my wanderings see;

The waters widely round me flow—

   I feel that I am free!

Oh! who can wish for sunny day,
When they may look on that lovely ray—
On the moon so pure, so clear, and fair,
  When no human form is nigh,
When no human voice can startle the air?
  All is silence and secrecy.

No sound but the waters, that, murmuring, move—
No light but the shadowless orb above.
But see! the shadows are gathering fast—
  The clear bright orb is gone:
Alas! no beauty can ever last,
  That e'er I gaze upon!

The waters that sparkled so bright before
Now moan alone the gloomy shore;
And all is dark—as the fate will be
That spreads its cheerless path for me!

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 05, 2023

41 sec read
69

Quick analysis:

Scheme X A X A BBCXCA XXDXDX EEAA
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 725
Words 138
Stanzas 7
Stanza Lengths 1, 1, 1, 1, 6, 6, 4

Louisa Stuart Costello

Louisa Stuart Costello was a writer on travel and French history. Costello was born in Ireland or Sussex. She resided in Paris, France, near the Seine River. She had no true home, but wandered place to place staying with friends and acquaintances. With her brother Dudley Costello, also a well known for his travel writing, they promoted the copying of illuminated manuscript. She wrote over 100 texts, articles, poems, songs and knew such people as Sir Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, Lord Byron, Thomas Moore. She was a poet, historian, journalist, painter and novelist. Her father was Colonel James Francis Costello, who died in April 1814 while fighting Napoleon. Costello published Memoirs of Eminent Englishwomen, which included her illustrations, and several other popular works of poetry and travel. Her collection Songs of a Stranger was dedicated to William Lisle Bowles. She did not return to France until after her mother sent for her in 1815/18 and then lived chiefly in Paris, where she was a miniature-painter. In 1815 she published The Maid of the Cyprus Isle, etc. She also wrote books of travel, which were very popular, as were her novels, chiefly founded on French history. Another work, published in 1835, is Specimens of the Early Poetry of France. She died in Boulogne sur Mer, France of mouth cancer. more…

All Louisa Stuart Costello poems | Louisa Stuart Costello Books

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