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| DOWN in the South, by the waste without sail on it— | |
| Far from the zone of the blossom and tree— | |
| Lieth, with winter and whirlwind and wail on it, | |
| Ghost of a land by the ghost of a sea. | |
| Weird is the mist from the summit to base of it; | 5 |
| Sun of its heaven is wizened and grey; | |
| Phantom of light is the light on the face of it— | |
| Never is night on it, never is day! | |
| Here is the shore without flower or bird on it; | |
| Here is no litany sweet of the springs— | 10 |
| Only the haughty, harsh thunder is heard on it, | |
| Only the storm, with a roar in its wings! | |
| |
| Shadow of moon is the moon in the sky of it— | |
| Wan as the face of a wizard, and far! | |
| Never there shines from the firmament high of it | 15 |
| Grace of the planet or glory of star. | |
| All the year round, in the place of white days on it— | |
| All the year round where there never is night— | |
| Lies a great sinister, bitter, blind haze on it: | |
| Growth that is neither of darkness nor light! | 20 |
| Wild is the cry of the sea in the caves by it— | |
| Sea that is smitten by spears of the snow; | |
| Desolate songs are the songs of the waves by it— | |
| Down in the South, where the ships never go. | |
| |
| Storm from the Pole is the singer that sings to it | 25 |
| Hymns of the land at the planet’s grey verge. | |
| Thunder discloses dark, wonderful things to it— | |
| Thunder, and rain, and the dolorous surge. | |
| Hills with no hope of a wing or a leaf on them, | |
| Scarred with the chronicles written by flame, | 30 |
| Stare through the gloom of inscrutable grief on them, | |
| Down on the horns of the gulfs without name. | |
| Cliffs with the records of fierce flying fires on them— | |
| Loom over perilous pits of eclipse; | |
| Alps, with anathema stamped in the spires on them— | 35 |
| Out by the wave with a curse on its lips. | |
| |
| Never is sign of soft, beautiful green on it— | |
| Never the colour, the glory of rose! | |
| Neither the fountain nor river is seen on it, | |
| Naked its crags are, and barren its snows! | 40 |
| Blue as the face of the drowned is the shore of it— | |
| Shore, with the capes of indefinite cave. | |
| Strange is the voice of its wind, and the roar of it | |
| Startles the mountain and hushes the wave. | |
| Out to the South and away to the north of it, | 45 |
| Spectral and sad are the spaces untold! | |
| All the year round a great cry goeth forth of it— | |
| Sob of this leper of lands in the cold. | |
| |
| No man hath stood, all its bleak, bitter years on it— | |
| Fall of a foot on its wastes is unknown: | 50 |
| Only the sound of the hurricane’s spears on it | |
| Breaks with the shout from the uttermost zone. | |
| Blind are its bays with the shadow of bale on them; | |
| Storms of the nadir their rocks have uphurled; | |
| Earthquake hath registered deeply its tale on them— | 55 |
| Tale of distress from the dawn of the world! | |
| There are the gaps, with the surges that seethe in them— | |
| Gaps in whose jaws is a menace that glares! | |
| There the wan reefs, with the merciless teeth in them, | |
| Gleam on a chaos that startles and scares! | 60 |
| |
| Back in the dawn of this beautiful sphere, on it— | |
| Land of the dolorous, desolate face— | |
| Beamed the blue day; and the bountiful year on it | |
| Fostered the leaf and the blossom of grace. | |
| Grand were the lights of its midsummer noon on it— | 65 |
| Mornings of majesty shone on its seas: | |
| Glitter of star and the glory of moon on it | |
| Fell, in the march of the musical breeze. | |
| Valleys and hills, with the whisper of wing in them, | |
| Dells of the daffodil—spaces impearled, | 70 |
| Flowered and flashed with the splendour of Spring in them— | |
| Back in the morn of this wonderful world. | |
| |
| Soft were the words that the thunder then said to it— | |
| Said to this lustre of emerald plain; | |
| Sun brought the yellow, the green, and the red to it— | 75 |
| Sweet were the songs of its silvery rain. | |
| Voices of water and wind in the bays of it | |
| Lingered, and lulled like the psalm of a dream. | |
| Fair were the nights and effulgent the days of it— | |
| Moon was in shadow and shade in the beam. | 80 |
| Summer’s chief throne was the marvellous coast of it, | |
| Home of the Spring was its luminous lea: | |
| Garden of glitter! but only the ghost of it | |
| Moans in the South by the ghost of a sea. | |
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