"The Swimmer" With short, sharp, violent lights made vivid, To southward far as the sight can roam ; Only the swirl of the surges livid, The seas that climb and the surfs that comb.
Only the crag and the cliff to nor'ward, [And] the rocks receding, and reefs flung forward, [And] waifs wrecked seaward and wasted shoreward On shallows sheeted with flaming foam.
A grim, grey coast and a seaboard ghastly, And shores trod seldom by feet of men -– Where the battered hull and the broken mast lie, They have lain embedded these long years ten.
The skies were fairer and shores were firmer --[2] The blue sea over the bright sand rolled ; Babble and prattle, and ripple and murmur, Sheen of silver and glamour of gold – Sheen of silver and glamour of gold - [And the sunset bath'd in the gulf to lend her A garland of pinks and of purples tender, A tinge of the sun-god's rosy splendour, A tithe of his glories manifold.]
[When light in the realms of space lay hidden, When life was yet in the womb of time, Ere flesh was fettered to fruits forbidden, And souls were wedded to care and crime, Was the course foreshaped for the future spirit – A burden of folly, a void of merit – That would fain the wisdom of stars inherit, And cannot fathom the seas sublime ?]
girt with tempest and winged with thunder,[3] And clad with lightning and shod with sleet, The strong winds treading the swift waves sunder[4] The flying rollers with frothy feet.
One gleam like a bloodshot sword-blade swims on The skyline, staining the green gulf crimson, A death stroke fiercely dealt by a dim sun, That strikes through his stormy winding-sheet.
you gather and gallop, The storm sprite loosens the gusty reins ; Now the stoutest ship were the frailest shallop In your hollow backs, on your high arched manes.