Written in the Church-Yard at Middleton in Sussex
Charlotte Turner Smith
Press'd by the moon, mute arbitress of tides,
While the loud equinox its power combines,
The sea no more its swelling surge confines,
But o'er the shrinking land sublimely rides.
The wild blast, rising from the western cave,
Drives the huge billows from their heaving bed;
Tears from their grassy tombs the village dead,
And breaks the silent sabbath of the grave!
With shells and sea-weed mingled, on the shore,
Lo! their bones whiten in the frequent wave;
But vain to them the winds and waters rave;
They hear the warring elements no more:
While I am doom'd-by life's long storm opprest,
To gaze with envy on their gloomy rest.
In Charlotte Smith's time, and for many years before and after, Middleton was a small coastal village. It grew substantially and became a popular seaside resort in the 1920s.
