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;