Page:Roden Noel - A Little Child's Monument - 1881.pdf/64

 Wine-dark, fern-tufted; I am afloat in froth, That seethes and sparkles on a heaving clear Sunned chrysoprase; hued like a burnet-moth Here the cliff shows, shell-crusted wholly here With shells, bathing their lucid filaments In lapsing crystal; among twilit grots, Fulfilling strange mysterious intents, I hear far waters commune in dim spots With weird rock-comrade, monster fish, or seal, Or slumberous anemones that feel. Through yon chaotic arch of vasty height, Of grand proportion, hewn by Titan hand Of turbulent tempest, flying in blue light Appear white sails, and capes of basking land, Rich hazy brown; here towering dread forms Of silent crag brood awful and alone: These have absorbed all terror of the storms, That wear, combat, caress their writhen stone.

II. My soul said then to Earth and Air: "How can I deem that ye would dare To smile and dally, if ye did The deed of darkness? holding hid My stolen child, my withered blossom, Plucked, trampled, dead in your dark bosom! If at the heart of your mad glee