The Rock. Empty Brawler brawl no more;
Cease to waste thy watery war
On my bastion’d Bases broad,
Sanctified by Time and God.
The Ocean. Thou that beëst but to be,
Scornest thou my Energy?
Not much longer lasts the strife.
I am Labour, I am Life.
The Rock. Roar then, roar, and vent thy Surge;
Thou not now shalt drone my dirge.
Dost imagine to dismay
This my iron breast with Spray?
The Ocean. Relic of primaeval slime,
I shall whelm thee in my time.
Changeless thou dost ever die;
Changing but immortal, I.
[Death and Love]
Death, pacing between a ghastly Moon
Dying low down on the western Hills
And the Star, bright usher of the Morn,
The clear Dawn cryophor,
Trod frosty footprints in the dew
Upon a ridge; and beholding there
A lovely Lady lain below
His tingling Arrow sped—
A Barb with a burning icicle tip’d,
Torn from the frore beard of the Northern Star
That stares on the shuddering pyramids
Of crumbling Arctic ice.