Here clove the keels of centuries ago 
 Where now unvisited the flats lie bare. 
 Here seethed the sweep of journeying waters, where 
 No more the tumbling floods of Fundy flow, 
 And only in the samphire pipes creep slow 
 The salty currents of the sap. The air 
 Hums desolately with wings that seaward fare, 
 Over the lonely reaches beating low. 
 The wastes of hard and meagre weeds are thronged 
 With murmurs of a past that time has wronged; 
 And ghosts of many an ancient memory 
 Dwell by the brackish pools and ditches blind, 
 In these low-lying pastures of the wind, 
 These marshes pale and meadows by the sea.