Let me, calm face, remain
For ever in these sweet sequestered nooks,
Remote from pain,
Where leafy laurustinus overlooks
The blue abounding main.
Ne’er will I crave, I vow,
Your loveliness despite, that we may stand
More nigh than now;
You, with the fresh-plucked roses in your hand,
And I with inclined brow.
With air, and sea, and sky,
And penetrative music on the beach,
All that is high,
And far, and holy, and beyond our reach,
I you identify.
Then, lady, let me stay,
Here where no storm nor surge of discontent
Can find its way;
Hearkening your holy admonitions, blent
With murmurs from the bay.
Alfred Austin (1835 – 1913) was an English journalist and a poet who was appointed Poet Laureate in 1896, after an interval following the death of Tennyson, when the other candidates had either caused controversy or simply refused the honor. It was claimed that he was being rewarded for his support for the Conservative leader Lord Salisbury in the General Election of 1895.