Even as a toothless gray-beard's churning jaw
Mumbles a jagged crust, till patient gums
Wear from its ridges some reluctant crumbs,
So have I seen the white-haired Ocean gnaw
Earth's granite crust; and eldest ages saw
The same slow toil in long milleniums!
Patient as time, day after day he comes
Twice to that meagre feast with sateless maw:
How the long lapping on the coast-line tells!
The rock-bound meadows creep into the sea.
The white waves wander where in sunny dells
The shepherd led his fleecy company.
Keels plough the plains the rustic ploughed before,
And the fast-anchored isles drift to some distant shore !
