SEAWARD goes the sun, and homeward by the down We, before the night upon his grave be sealed. Low behind us lies the bright steep murmuring town, High before us heaves the steep rough silent field. Breach by ghastlier breach, the cliffs collapsing yield: Half the path is broken, half the banks divide; Flawed and crumbled, riven and rent, they cleave and slide Toward the ridged and wrinkled waste of girdling sand Deep beneath, whose furrows tell how far and wide Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand. Star by star on the unsunned waters twiring down, Golden spear-points glance against a silver shield. Over banks and bents, across the headland's crown, As by pulse of gradual plumes through twilight wheeled, Soft as sleep, the waking wind awakes the weald. Moor and copse and fallow, near or far descried, Feel the mild wings move, and gladden where they glide: Silence, uttering love that all things understand, Bids the quiet fields forget that hard beside Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand. Yet may sight, ere all the hoar soft shade grow brown, Hardly reckon half the rifts and rents unhealed Where the scarred cliffs downward sundering drive and drown, Hewn as if with stroke of swords in tempest steeled, Wielded as the night's will and the wind's may wield. Crowned and zoned in vain with flowers of autumn-tide, Soon the blasts shall break them, soon the waters hide; Soon, where late we stood, shall no man ever stand. Life and love seek harborage on the landward side: Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand. Friend, though man be less than these, for all his pride, Yet, for all his weakness, shall not hope abide? Wind and change can wreck but life and waste but land: Truth and trust are sure, though here till all subside Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...NICHARCHUS UPON PHIDON HIS DOCTOR by EZRA POUND MAY 30, 1893 by JOHN KENDRICK BANGS TO WISDOM by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD THE CHARM by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN THE BLUNDER by HARRY RANDOLPH BLYTHE I THINK I KNOW NO FINER THINGS THAN DOGS by HALLY CARRINGTON BRENT |