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I OFF the long headland, threshed about by round-backed breakers, | |
| There is a black rock, standing high at the full tide; | |
| Off the headland there is emptiness, | |
| And the moaning of the ocean, | |
| And the black rock standing alone. | 5 |
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| In the orange wake of sunset, | |
| When the gulls have fallen silent, | |
| And the winds slip out and meet together from the edges of the sea, | |
| Settled down in the dark water, | |
| Fragment of the earth abandoned, | 10 |
| Ragged and huge the black rock stands. | |
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| It is as if it listened, | |
| Stood and listened very intently | |
| To the everlasting swish and boom and hiss of spray, | |
| Listened to the creeping-on of night; | 15 |
| While afar off, to the westward, | |
| Dark clouds silently are packed together, | |
| With a dull red glow between. | |
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| It is listening, it is lonely; | |
| For the sunlight | 20 |
| Showed it houses near the headland, | |
| Trees and flowers; | |
| For the sunlight caused to grow upon it scanty blades of grass, | |
| For the crannies of the rock, | |
| Here and there; | 25 |
| For the sunlight brought it back remembrance of a world. | |
| Long rejected | |
| And long lost; | |
| Showed it white sails near the coast, | |
| Children paddling in the bay, | 30 |
| Signs of life and kinship with mankind | |
| Long forgot. | |
| Now the sunset leaves it there, | |
| Bare, rejected, a black scrap of rock, | |
| Battered by the tides, | 35 |
| Wallowing in the sea. | |
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| Bleak, adrift, | |
| Shattered like a monstrous ship of stone, | |
| Left aground | |
| By the waters, on its voyage; | 40 |
| With no foot to touch its deck, | |
| With no hand to lift its sails, | |
| There it stands. | |
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II Gulls wheel near it in the sunlight, | |
| White backs flash; | 45 |
| Gray wings eddy, curl, are lifted, swept away, | |
| On a wave; | |
| Gulls pass rapidly in the sunlight | |
| Round about it. | |
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| Gulls pass, screaming harshly to the wave-thrusts, | 50 |
| Laughing in uncanny voices; | |
| Lonely flocks of great white birds, | |
| Like to ghosts; | |
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| But the black rock does not welcome them, | |
| Knows by heart already all their cries; | 55 |
| Hears, repeated, for the millionth millionth time | |
| All the bitterness of ocean | |
| Howling through their voices. | |
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| It still dreams of other things, | |
| Of the cities and the fields, | 60 |
| And the lands near to the coast | |
| Where the lonely grassy valleys | |
| Full of dun herds deeply browsing, | |
| Sweep in wide curves to the sea; | |
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| It still holds the memory | 65 |
| Of the wild bees booming, murmuring, | |
| In the fields of thyme and clover, | |
| And the shadows of broad trees | |
| Towards noon: | |
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| It still lifts its huge scarred sides | 70 |
| Vainly to the burning glare of sun, | |
| With the memory of doom | |
| Thick upon them; | |
| And the hope that by some fate | |
| It may come once more to be | 75 |
| Part of all the earth it had; | |
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| Freed from clamor of the waves, | |
| From the broken planks and wreckage | |
| Drifting aimless here and there, | |
| With the tides; | 80 |
| Freed to share its life with earth, | |
| And to be a dwelling-place | |
| For the outcast tribes of men, | |
| Once again. | |
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III In the morning, | 85 |
| When the dark clouds whirl swift over, | |
| From the southeast, dragging with them | |
| Heavy curtains of gray rain, | |
| |
| The black rock rejoices. | |
| All its little gullies drip with cool refreshing showers. | 90 |
| All the crannies, all the steeps, | |
| All the meagre sheltered places | |
| Fill with drip and tinkle of the rain. | |
| |
| But when the afternoon between the clouds | |
| Leaves adrift cool patches of the sea, | 95 |
| Between floes of polar snow; | |
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| Then the rock is all aflame; | |
| Diamond, emeralds, topazes, | |
| Burn and shatter, and it seems | |
| Like a garden filled with flowers. | 100 |
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| Like a garden where the rapid wheeling lights | |
| And black shadows lift and sway and fall; | |
| Spring and summer and red autumn chase each other | |
| Moment after moment, on its face, | |
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| So, till sunset | 105 |
| Lifts once more its lonely crimson torch, | |
| Menacing and mournful, far away; | |
| Then an altar left abandoned, it stands facing all the horizon | |
| Where the light departs. | |
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| Massive black and crimson towers, | 110 |
| Cities carven by the wind from out the clouds of sunset look at it; | |
| It has dreamed them, it has made this sacrifice, | |
| Now it sees their rapid passing, | |
| Soon it will be bleak and all alone. | |
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IV Abrupt and broken rock, | 115 |
| Black rock, awash in the midst of the waters, | |
| Lonely, aloof, deserted, | |
| Impotent to change; | |
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| Storm-clouds lift off, | |
| The dawn strikes the hills far inland. | 120 |
| But you are forever tragic and apart, | |
| Forever battling with the sea; | |
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| Till the waves have ground you to dust— | |
| Till the ages are all accomplished, | |
| Till you have relinquished the last reluctant fragment | 125 |
| To the gnawing teeth of the wave; | |
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| I know the force of your patience, | |
| I have shared your grim silent struggle, | |
| The mad dream you have, and will not abandon, | |
| To cover your strength with gay flowers; | 130 |
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| Keel of the world, apart, | |
| I have lived like you. | |
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| Some men are soil of the earth; | |
| Their lives are broad harvest fields | |
| Green in the spring, and gold in their season, | 135 |
| Then barren and mown; | |
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| But those whom my soul has loved | |
| Are bare rocks standing off headlands; | |
| Cherishing, perhaps, a few bitter wild flowers, | |
That bloom in the granite, year after year.
The Yale Review | 140 |
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