Frederick William Faber - The Menai Bridge lyrics

Fairest of rocky England's channel-gates! With what a blessed calm to the main ocean The ebbing tide with silent under-motion Upward is drawn along thy weedy Straits! The glossy water, shot with blue and green, Throws off the sunlight like the restless throat Of some vain dove; and ships, methinks, might float, Trusting the deep in places so serene. Thus wreathed in folds of summer billow, who Would deem old tales of wreck and tempest true, Where yon vast marvel, like an albatross Still springing upward, as it seems, in air, Spreads in light grandeur his huge wings across, Self-poised in momentary balance there?