Narcissus and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

I mock the moaning of the maddened sea
In fathomless gorges far withdrawn, and down
I drag the screaming crags resistlessly
From ledge to ledge through storm and rainbow crown.
I sing of vessels trapt in utter night,
That shiver down a roaring gulf of wind,
Before them sudden blackness, and behind
Waste hissing of the waves in foaming white.

I fold the feverish eyelids of the day
To court confusion of the crazy dark;
I shroud the sunbeam in my ceaseless spray
And drown the slender singing of the lark;

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I race in the swift eagle's flight, and roll
The eager flashes of his yellow eye;
I rage beside the hurricane, and sigh
'Mid seas of silent snow about the pole.

I dance along the ruins of the world
Wrapt in my own impenetrable breath;
Stride I in fury on the storm-winds whirled
With war and famine, pestilence and death.
I sing along the desert in the sun,
I play amidst his rays and plume my wings;
I thunder in the columned dust that flings
The veil of death, nor man nor beast can shun.

Hear me, O hear! I cease not evermore:
Me the eternal Future changes not,
Ye bubbles broke upon a sounding shore,
Ye worms that creep into the earth and rot!
I only live: I dip and dart and skim,
And weave my flight through elemental spray;
Who battles me, ruthless I sweep away,—
Who yields, oblivion swiftly merges him.