Here clove the keels of centuries ago Where now unvisited the flats lie bare. Here seethed the sweep of journeying waters, whereNo more the tumbling floods of Fundy flow,And only in the samphire pipes creep slow The salty currents of the sap. The air Hums desolately with wings that seaward fare,Over the lonely reaches beating low.
The wastes of hard and meagre weeds are throngedWith murmurs of a past that time has wronged; And ghosts of many an ancient memoryDwell by the brackish pools and ditches blind,In these low-lying pastures of the wind, These marshes pale and meadows by the sea.
