"Yon silvery billows breaking on the beach Fall back in foam beneath the star-shine clear, The while my rhymes are murmuring in your ear A restless lore like that the billows teach; For on these sonnet-waves my soul would reach From its own depths, and rest within you, dear, As, through the billowy voices yearning here Great nature strives to find a human speech.A sonnet is a wave of melody: From heaving waters of the impassion'd soul A billow of tidal music one and whole Flows in the "octave"; then, returning free, Its ebbing surges in the "sestet" roll Back to the deeps of Life's tumultuous sea."
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"The Sonnet's Voice (A metrical lesson by the seashore)", in The Athenaeum (17 September 1881).
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Theodore_Watts-Dunton
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Theodore Watts-Dunton
Theodore Watts-Dunton (12 October 1832 – 6 June 1914) was an English critic and poet.
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