The collected poems of Arthur Edward Waite :: :: University of Virginia Library

The sun descended in a flaming mist
And all God's world beneath it—wide, waste downs,
Blue sky, serene and beautiful, and thou,
Half-shrouded sea, mysterious, with smooth,
Far-reaching bay, for miles and miles the land
Embracing—steep'd therein, divinely glow'd
Through deepening orange clouds ... A sudden change,

A shifting wind, a lifting mist, and lo!
Eastwards the sea shone cold and steely grey,
While downs and headlands, with the chalky roads
That wound among them—as the wan, white moon
Rose over like a phantom grandiose—
All these grew sombre. Facing there the main,
I stood, rich Sunset Land upon my right,
With capes and cliffs, with towns and towers therein,
Enchanted, dreaming; on the left, this world,
Which sober'd sadly towards a single tint
As night fell down thereon. It did not sleep,
It did not wake, but ever as the wind
Grew keener, utter'd its disquietude,
Sole sign of life. Of which of these could one
Apart from both—in such a mood—have said
This and not that was true reality?