2. What is it? a learned man Could give it a clumsy name. Let him name it who can, The beauty would be the same. 3. The tiny cell is forlorn, Void of the little living will That made it stir on the shore. Did he stand at the diamond door Of his house in a rainbow frill? Did he push, when he was uncurl'd, A golden foot or a fairy horn Thro' his dim water-world? 4. Slight, to be crush' d with a tap Of my finger-nail on the sand, Small, but a work divine, Frail, but of force to withstand, Year upon year, the shock Of cataract seas that snap The three-decker's oaken spine Athwart the ledges of rock, Here on the Breton strand! 5. Breton, not Briton; here Like a shipwreck'd man on a coast Of ancient fable and fear-- Plagued with a flitting to and fro, A disease, a hard mechanic ghost That never came from on high Nor ever arose from below, But only moves with the moving eye, Flying along the land and the main-- Why should it look like Maud? Am I to be overawed By what I cannot but know Is a juggle born of the brain? 6. Back from the Breton coast, Sick of a nameless fear, Back to the dark sea-line Looking, thinking of all I have lost; An old song vexes my ear; But that of Lamech is mine. 7. For years, a measureless ill, For years, for ever, to part-- But she, she would love me still; And as long, God, as she Have a grain of love for me, So long, no doubt, no doubt, Shall I nurse in my dark heart, However weary, a spark of will Not to be trampled out. 8. Strange, that the mind, when fraught With a passion so intense One would think that it well Might drown all life in the eye,-- That it should, by being so overwrought, Suddenly strike on a sharper sense For a shell, or a flower, little things Which else would have been past by! And now I remember, I, When he lay dying there, I noticed one of his many rings (For he had many, poor worm) and thought It is his mother's hair. 9. Who knows if he be dead? Whether I need have fled? Am I guilty of blood? However this may be, Comfort her, comfort her, all things good, While I am over the sea! Let me and my passionate love go by, But speak to her all things holy and high, Whatever happen to me! Me and my harmful love, go by; But come to her waking, find her asleep, Powers of the height. Powers of the deep, And comfort her tho' I die. III. Courage, poor heart of stone! I will not ask thee why Thou canst not understand That thou art left for ever alone: Courage, poor stupid heart of stone.-- Or if I ask thee why, Care not thou to reply: She is but dead, and the time is at hand When thou shalt more than die. IV. 1. O that 'twere possible After long grief and pain To find the arms of my true love Round me once again! 2. When I was wont to meet her In the silent woody places By the home that gave me birth, We stood tranced in long embraces Mixt with kisses sweeter sweeter Than any thing on earth.