Flame passes under us,
And sparks that unknot the flesh,
Sorrow, splitting bone from bone—
Splendour athwart our eyes,
And rifts in the splendour—
Sparks and scattered light.
Many warned of this.
Men said:
There are wrecks on the fore-beach.
Wind will beat your ship.
There is no shelter in that headland.
It is useless waste, that edge,
That front of rock.
Sea-gulls clang beyond the breakers—
None venture to that spot.
IV
But hail—
As the tide slackens,
As the wind beats out,
We hail this shore.
We sing to you,
Spirit between the headlands
And the further rocks.
Though oak-beams split,
Though boats and sea-men flounder,
And the strait grind sand with sand
And cut boulders to sand and drift—
Your eyes have pardoned our faults.
Your hands have touched us.
You have leaned forward a little
And the waves can never thrust us back
From the splendour of your ragged coast.
TEMPLE—THE CLIFF
I
Great, bright portal,
Shelf of rock,
Rocks fitted in long ledges,
Rocks fitted to dark, to silver-granite,
To lighter rock—
Clean cut, white against white.
High—high—and no hill-goat
Tramples—no mountain-sheep
Has set foot on your fine grass.
You lift, you are the world-edge,
Pillar for the sky-arch.