The world with all her winds and waters, earth and air, Fields, folds, and moving clouds. The awful and adored Arches and endless aisles of vacancy, the fair Void of sheer heights and hollows hailed him as her lord And lover in the highest, to whom all heaven lay bare! Till from that tower of ecstasy, that baffled height, Stooping, he sank; and slowly on the world’s wide way Walked, with great wing on wing, the merciless, proud Might, Hunting the huddled and lone reaches for his prey Down the dim shore--and faded in the crumbling light. Slowly the dusk covered the land. Like a great hymn The sound of moving winds and waters was; the sea Whispered a benediction, and the west grew dim Where evening lifted her clear candles quietly ... Heaven, crowded with stars, trembled from rim to rim. DISDAINFUL BEAUTY On the wide waste the web of twilight, trembling Hangs low with stars and night; The dying day in the worn west, dissembling, Crowns his defeat with light. Here by the grave, gray sea my soul sinks crying, By beauty stabbed to death-- “O, in the dusk of the world, let me, too, dying, Mix with all these my breath!” There is no answer. In the cold heavens shining, Star trembles unto star: The virgin moon in the clear west declining Hangs, like a scimitar. MY LONELY ONE Even as a hawk’s in the large heaven’s hollow Are the great ways and gracious of your love: No lesser flight or wearier wing may follow In those broad gyres where you rest and move. Most merciless, most high, most proud, most lonely-- In the clear space between the sky and sea Wheel her huge orbits, where the sea-winds only Wander the sun-roads of Immensity. Yet have I known your heart and of what fashion Your love, how great, how hardly to be borne-- Your tenderness, too perfect for compassion, Your divine strength, too pure and proud for scorn. You are most beautiful, but it is given But few to find you, fewer still to keep Your high path through the solitude of heaven, My lonely one, your watch upon the Deep. Now toward the gold glow of the sunset’s splendor Veer your great vans. What haven in the west Now draws you--while the mellowing light makes tender Your dripping plumes--what islands of the blest? Lift me, O lift me up to you forever, Beautiful Terror! Let your sacred might Stoop to me here, and save--O let me never Sink from you now, to share a lesser flight! Even as I pray, my wings of longing fail me, And my heart flags. In solitude you move Down the night’s shore: not praying shall avail me, To lift me, fallen from your faultless love. III THE LOST TRAVELLER’S DREAM WILD THOUGHT Surf of song upon my heart Breaks forever, where thou art; The dark ocean in my breast, Of wild love, may never rest: Still one thought upon her shore Breaks in dream forevermore!