Ah, yet my youth was old [_Str._ 1. Its first years dead and cold As last year's autumn's gold, And all my spirit of singing sick and sad and sere, Or ever I might behold The fairest of thy fold Engirt, enringed, enrolled, In all thy flower-sweet flock of islands dear and near. Yet in my heart I deemed [_Str._ 2. The fairest things, meseemed, Truth, dreaming, ever dreamed, Had made mine eyes already like a god's to see: Of all sea-things that were Clothed on with water and air, That none could live more fair Than thy sweet love long since had shown for love to me. I knew not, mother of mine, [_Ant._ 1. That one birth more divine Than all births else of thine That hang like flowers or jewels on thy deep soft breast Was left for me to shine Above thy girdling line Of bright and breathing brine, To take mine eyes with rapture and my sense with rest. That this was left for me, [_Ant._2. Mother, to have of thee, To touch, to taste, to see, To feel as fire fulfilling all my blood and breath, As wine of living fire Keen as the heart's desire That makes the heart its pyre And on its burning visions burns itself to death. For here of all thy waters, here of all Thy windy ways the wildest, and beset As some beleaguered city's war-breached wall With deaths enmeshed all round it in deep net, Thick sown with rocks deadlier than steel, and fierce With loud cross-countering currents, where the ship Flags, flickering like a wind-bewildered leaf, The densest weft of waves that prow may pierce Coils round the sharpest warp of shoals that dip Suddenly, scarce well under for one brief Keen breathing-space between the streams adverse, Scarce showing the fanged edge of one hungering lip Or one tooth lipless of the ravening reef; And midmost of the murderous water's web All round it stretched and spun, Laughs, reckless of rough tide and raging ebb, The loveliest thing that shines against the sun. O flower of all wind-flowers and sea-flowers, [_Str._ 3. Made lovelier by love of the sea Than thy golden own field-flowers, or tree-flowers Like foam of the sea-facing tree! No foot but the seamew's there settles On the spikes of thine anthers like horns, With snow-coloured spray for thy petals, Black rocks for thy thorns. Was it here, in the waste of his waters, [_Ant._ 3. That the lordly north wind, when his love On the fairest of many king's daughters Bore down for a spoil from above, Chose forth of all farthest far islands As a haven to harbour her head, Of all lowlands on earth and all highlands, His bride-worthy bed?