Here let me rest, here nurse the uneasy qualm
That yearns within me;
And to the heaped-up sea,
Sun-spangled in the quiet afternoon,
Sing my devotions.

In the sun, at the edge of the down,
The whin-pods cackle
In desultory volleys;
And the bank breathes in my face
Its hot sweet breath —
Breath that stirs and kindles,
Lights that suggest, not satisfy —
Is there never in life or nature
An opiate for desire?
Has everything here a voice,
Saying " I am not the goal;
Nature is not to be looked at alone;
Her breath, like the breath of a mistress,
Her breath also,
Parches the spirit with longing
Sick and enervating longing. "

Well, let the matter rest.
I rise and brush the windle-straws
Off my clothes; and lighting another pipe
Stretch myself over the down.
Get thee behind me, nature!
I turn my back on the sun
And face from the grey new town at the foot of the bay.
I know an amber lady
Who has her abode
At the lips of the street
In prisons of coloured glass.
I had rather die of her love
Than sicken for you, O Nature!
Better be drunk and merry
Than dreaming awake!
Better be Falstaff than Obermann!