Here often, when a child, I lay reclined

Here often when a child I lay reclined:

I took delight in this fair strand and free:

Here stood the infant Illion of my mind,

And here the Grecian ships all seemed to be,

And here again I come and only find

The drain-cut level of the marshy lea,

Gray sand-banks and pale sunsets, dreary wind,

Dim shores, dense rains, and heavy-clouded sea.

Yet though perchance no tract of earth have more

Unlikeness to the fair Ionian plain,

I love the place that I have loved before,

I love the rolling cloud, the flying rain,

The brown sea lapsing back with sullen roar,

To travel leagues before he comes again,

The misty desert of the houseless shore,

The phantom-circle of the moaning main.