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 excited 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 veuit hie fluctus, fiuctus supereminet omnes; 

 Posterior nono est, undechnoque prior, 



Trislia Elegia, 2. 

 Vastius insurgens declines riiit impetus nndce. 



Metamor-ph. 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 when breaking vn 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, xm 

 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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