Chapter XI

This Poem would describe a calm and quiet day in October--late autumn.

No doubt, the scenery described _does not refer to Clevedon, but to some Lincolnshire wold, from which the whole range from marsh to the sea was visible_.

The stillness of the spot is just broken by the sound of the horse chestnut falling[14] through the dead leaves, and these are reddening to their own fall. No time of the year is more quiet, not even is the insect abroad: the waves just swell and fall noiselessly, and this reminds him of

"The dead calm in that noble breast
Which heaves but with the heaving deep."