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III. THE CASTLE
(In Scotland)
The tenderest ripple touched and touched the shore;
The tenderest light was in the western sky;—
Its one soft phrase, closing reluctantly,
The sea articulated o'er and o'er
To comfort all tired things; and one might pore,
Till mere oblivion took the heart and eye,
On that slow-fading, amber radiancy
Past the long levels of the ocean-floor.
A turn,—the castle fronted me, four-square,
Holding its seaward crag, abrupt, intense
Against the west, an apparition bold
Of naked human will; I stood aware,
With sea and sky, of powers unowned of sense,
Presences awful, vast, and uncontrolled.
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