V. ON THE CLIFF. 1. I LEANED on the turf, I looked at a rock Left dry by the surf; For the turf, to call it grass were to mock: Dead to the roots, so deep was done The work of the summer sun. 2. And the rock lay flat As an anvil's face: No iron like that! Baked dry; of a weed, of a shell, no trace: Sunshine outside, but ice at the core, Death's altar by the lone shore. 3. On the turf, sprang gay With his films of blue, No cricket, I'll say, But a warhorse, barded and chanfroned too, The gift of a quixote-mage to his knight, Real fairy, with wings all right. 4. On the rock, they scorch Like a drop of fire From a brandished torch, Fell two red fans of a butterfly: No turf, no rock, in their ugly stead, See, wonderful blue and red! Is it not so 5. With the minds of men? The level and low, The burnt and bare, in themselves; but then With such a blue and red grace, not theirs, Love settling unawares! 2 VI. UNDER THE CLIFF. 1. "STILL ailing, Wind? Wilt be appeased or no? And can, in truth, my voice untie Its links, and let it go? 2. "Art thou a dumb, wronged thing that would be righted, Intrusting thus thy cause to me? Forbear. No tongue can mend such pleadings; faith, requited With falsehood,-love, at last aware Of scorn, hopes, early blighted, 3. "We have them; but I know not any tone So fit as thine to falter forth a sorrow: Dost think men would go mad without a moan, A pathos like thy own? 4. "Which sigh wouldst mock, of all the sighs? The one So long escaping from lips starved and blue, That lasts while on her pallet-bed the nun Stretches her length; her foot comes through The straw she shivers on; 5. "You had not thought she was so tall: and spent, Her shrunk lids open, her lean fingers shut Close, close, their sharp and livid nails indent The clammy palm; then all is mute : That way, the spirit went. 6. "Or wouldst thou rather that I understand Thy will to help me?—like the dog I found Once, pacing sad this solitary strand, Who would not take my food, poor hound, All this, and more, comes from some young man's pride Of power to see, in failure and mistake, Relinquishment, disgrace, on every side, Merely examples for his sake, Helps to his path untried: 8. Instances he must-simply recognize? Oh, more than so!-must, with a learner's zeal, Make doubly prominent, twice emphasize, By added touches that reveal The god in babe's disguise. 9. Oh, he knows what defeat means, and the rest! Failure, disgrace, he flings them you to test, His triumph, in eternity Too plainly manifest! 10. Whence, judge if he learn forthwith what the wind Means in its moaning-by the happy, prompt, Calm years, exacting their accompt Of pain, mature the mind: 11. And some midsummer morning, at the lull |