Note 15 — TWO SONNETS.
Reading edition
These lines were composed on the north coast of Scotland, in view of a wild sea-cave, the extent of which has never been ascertained. The Atlantic rolls into it with such fury during a tempest, that the spray rises like smoke from an orifice in the rock resembling a chimney, at some distance from the mouth of the cave. This singular and startling effect has no doubt given rise to the popular name of this remarkable cavern—Hell’s Lum. Scott would have been pleased with it, and its romantic legends of mermaids, &c.