"Look, stranger, at this island now" by W.H. Auden NOTES

Look, stranger, at this island now by W.H. Auden
This poem us a "musical" exercise in which the poet reveals his technical skill by using sound techniques and figurative language to reinforce his description of a scene. It is one of Auden's few poems of natural description, perhaps of the coast in the West Country of England.
The first stanza requires the stranger - someone unfamiliar with the island of kingdom of Britain but perhaps acquainted with the stereotype of it as a dull and gloomy place - to look at, and re-examine his prejudice about, Britain, as it is revealed ("discovered")…