To sea, to sea! The calm is o’er; The wanton water leaps in sport, And rattles down the pebbly shore; The dolphin wheels, the sea-cows snort, And uns… - Thomas Lovell Beddoes

Is it not sweet to die? for, what is death,
But sighing that we ne’er may sigh again,
Getting a length beyond our tedious selves;
But trampling the last tear from poisonous sorrow,
Spilling our woes, crushing our frozen hopes,
And passing like an incense out of man?
Then, if the body felt, what were its sense,
Turning to daisies gently in the grave,
If not the soul’s most delicate delight
When it does filtrate, through the pores of thought,
In love and the enamelled flowers of song?

By female voicesWe have bathed, where none have seen us, In the lake and in the fountain, Underneath the charmèd statue
Of the timid, bending Venus, When the water-nymphs were counting
In the waves the stars of night, And those maidens started at you,
Your limbs shone through so soft and bright. But no secrets dare we tell, For thy slaves unlace thee, And he, who shall embrace thee, Waits to try thy beauty’s spell.By male voicesWe have crowned thee queen of women, Since love’s love, the rose, hath kept her Court within thy lips and blushes,
And thine eye, in beauty swimming, Kissing, we rendered up the sceptre,
At whose touch the startled soul Like an ocean bounds and gushes,
And spirits bend at thy controul. But no secrets dare we tell, For thy slaves unlace thee, And he, who shall embrace thee, Is at hand, and so farewell.

Shivering in fever, weak, and parched to sand,
My ears, those entrances of word-dressed thoughts,
My pictured eyes, and my assuring touch,
Fell from me, and my body turned me forth
From its beloved abode: then I was dead;
And in my grave beside my corpse I sat,
In vain attempting to return: meantime
There came the untimely spectres of two babes,
And played in my abandoned body’s ruins;
They went away; and, one by one, by snakes
My limbs were swallowed; and, at last, I sat
With only one, blue-eyed, curled round my ribs,
Eating the last remainder of my heart,
And hissing to himself. O sleep, thou fiend!
Thou blackness of the night! how sad and frightful
Are these thy dreams!