Sonnets Round the Coast :: :: University of Virginia Library

No more through prayerful gardens glides the Frome:
The steam-gods, perched upon their pillars high,
Patch with their breath the weary, worn-out sky;
Hill-sides are white with smoke, not apple-bloom;
A red sun glares through the perpetual gloom;
Men stay not now to ask who passes by;
From the vexed Avon ever comes the cry
Of anxious steamers, questioning—“Is there room?”
The white sails mix, and move from street to street,
The quays are coloured with the dust of ware;
Whole nations at the landing-places meet,
And foreign cargoes perfume all the air;
Only at night, men hear the loud clock's beat
And souls regain the anchorage of prayer.