The Star-Treader and Other Poems

Above its domes the gulfs accumulate

To where the sea-winds trumpet forth their screed;

But here the buried waters take no heed—

Deaf, and with closèd lips from press of weight

Imposed by ocean. Dim, inanimate,

On temples of an unremembered creed

Involved in long, slow tentacles of weed,

The dead tide lies immovable as Fate.

From out the ponderous-vaulted ocean-dome,

A clouded light is questionably shed

On altars of a goddess garlanded

With blossoms of some weird and hueless vine;

And wingèd, fleet, through skies beneath the foam,

Like silent birds the sea-things dart and shine.