The Star-Treader and Other Poems

I flow beneath the columns that upbear

The world, and all the tracts of heaven and hell;

Foamless I sweep, where sounds nor glimmers tell

My motion nadir-ward; no moment's flare

Gives each to each the shapes that, unaware,

Commingle at my verge, to test the spell

Of waves intense with night, whose deeps compel

One face from pain, and rapture, and despair.

The fruitless earth's denied and cheated sons

Meet here, where fruitful and unfruitful cease.

And when their lords, the mightier, hidden Ones,

Have drained all worlds till being's wine is low,

Shall they not come, and from the oblivious flow

Drink at one draught a universe of peace?