Bowles 18: On a Distant View of England

Ah! from mine eyes the tears unbidden start,
Albion! As now thy cliffs (that white appear
Far o’er the wave, and their proud summits rear
To meet the beams of morn) my beating heart
With eager hope and filial transport hails!
Scenes of my youth, reviving gales ye bring,
As when erewhile the tuneful morn of spring
Joyous awoke amidst your hawthorn vales,
And fill’d with fragrance every painted plain:
Fled are those hours, and all the joys they gave,
Yet still I sigh, and count each rising wave
That bears me nearer to your haunts again;
If haply, 'mid those woods and vales so fair,
Stranger to peace, I yet may meet her there.

Coleridge's comment on this sonnet (in the letter quoted in the letter quoted in the previous post) is 'the parenthesis always [interr]upts the tide of my feelings'. And it is indeed a clunking great parenthesis: although not so distracting, to my eye, as the weird wrench of the sentiment of the poem at line 13-14: from eager hope and joy to a sudden sighing misery.