Valedictory lines. 435 



Or, while the tenth wave* rising roll'd on the shore, 

 And, lifting his head, gave a loud hollow roar, 

 Have heard the wild sea-bird's loud screaming, not 



song. 

 As I wander'd with pleasure the sea marge along. 

 In youth, ere Experience, with look sedate, chill, 

 Fix'd on Feeling the rein, there I wander'd at will, 

 While the young laughing Love, with his sinuous art, 

 Threw his magical sympathies over my heart. 

 In manhood less rapture, more pleasure, my share : 

 For reason had taught me your feelings to spare; 



* The tenth wave has exci^d the attention of the poets. 

 Maturin somewhere speaks of the '* tenth wave of human 

 misery." In turning over lately some of our older poets, I met 

 with an allusion to the ninth wave ; in whose works I do not 

 now recollect. Ovid has the following passages relative to this 

 subject : 



Qui venit hie fluctus, tiuctus supereminet omnes; 

 Posterior nono est, undecimoque prior, 



Tristia Elegia, 2. 

 Vastius insurgens decimce ruit impetus undce. 



Mttamorph. Lib. xi. 



This notion concerning the tenth wave has also been long 

 entertained by many persons conversant with the sea-shore : I 

 often heard it when I was a boy, and have repeatedly 

 watched the waves of the sea iHun breaking on the shore, 

 (for it is to this particular motion that the tenth wave, as far as 

 I know, applies,) and can state that, when the tide is ebbing, no 

 such phenomenon as the tenth wave occurs ; but that, when the 

 tide is flowing, some such is often observable; it is not, however, 

 invariably the tenth wave : after several smaller undulations, a 

 larger one follows, and the water rises. This is more distinctly 



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