  I. The all-devouring sea! I said,— While looking on the green- and red- Ribbed rocks a-tilt that flank Sharp's Head: The diary of the rain cloud driven To yield again its spoil by heaven, The west wind serving the replevin— Notes of the ocean's teeming floor, The carven shell, the seaweed's spore, And ripple-marks of tidal shore— Vast tablets of the world of eld, A mighty Bodleian unspelled, By ravine into dust compelled! The hills are fated to their fall. Upon the great, upon the small, Oblivion drops her raven pall. II. And then I thought: The form and mass May baffle ken of eye and glass, And yet the record may not pass. Tittle and jot, where all seems nil, A finer form in form may still Wait touch of that which doth fulfil. III. The liquid air, unseen, unheard, Writes in an everlasting word The wing-beats of the hasting bird. The sweet light leaves, and bears abroad, A picture of the wide realms trod With wingËd feet gold sandal-shod; Etching in truth and beauty's grace, Beyond compare of antique vase, On fronting hills the other's face. Nor shoreless deeps of space debar Blazon on earth of records far, In greening orb or burning star. IV. I said: Coined for exchange in mart Of purblind men with leaden heart, This word Oblivion on life's chart! Deft science' balance now prevails— This simulacrum in the scales, The verdict to the counter nails. V. And then, distraught by onward sweep Of meditation long and deep, I sought me out a place to weep— O soul, may not thy leaves, I mused, Stirred by death's shock through all diffused, Reveal thy story unconfused, Clear traced by thought's all-subtle beam— A quickened palimpsest agleam, Re-orient out of dusk and dream! |
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