An Escape Poem by Martin Farquhar Tupper

An hour of peril in thy Lydstep caves:
Down the steep gorge, grotesquely boulder-piled
And tempest-worn, as Ocean hurrying wild
Up it in thunder breaks and vainly raves,-
My haste hath sped me to the rippled sand,
Where, arching deep, o'erhang on either hand
These halls of Amphitrite, echoing clear
The ceaseless mournful music of the waves:
Ten thousand beauteous forms of life are here;
And long I linger, wandering in and out
Among the sea-flowers tapestried about
All over these wet walls: a shout of fear,-
The tide, the tide! - I turn'd and ran for life,-
And battled safely through that billowy strife!