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  (courtesy Rothe Technologies, Inc.)

Robert Browning (1812-1889):

THE gray sea and the long black land;

And the yellow half-moon large and low;

And the startled little waves that leap

In fiery ringlets from their sleep,

As I gain the cove with pushing prow,

And quench its speed i' the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;

Three fields to cross till a farm appears;

A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch

And blue spurt of a lighted match,

And a voice less loud, thro' its joys and fears

Than the two hearts beating each to each!

Arthur Quiller-Couch, The Oxford Book of English

Verse, 1250- 1900 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1912) 860.