Over and back, the long waves crawl and track the sand with foam; night darkens, and the sea takes on that desperate tone

NOR skin nor hide nor fleece Shall cover you, Nor curtain of crimson nor fine Shelter of cedar—wood be over you, Nor the fir—tree

Stars wheel in purple, yours is no… as Hesperus, nor yet so great a st… as bright Aldeboran or Sirius, nor yet the stained and brilliant… stars turn in purple, glorious to…

Weed, moss—weed, root tangled in sand, sea—iris, brittle flower, one petal like a shell is broken,

Silver dust lifted from the earth, higher than my arms reach, you have mounted. O silver,

So you have swept me back, I who could have walked with the l… above the earth, I who could have slept among the l… at last;

Bear me to Dictaeus, and to the steep slopes; to the river Erymanthus. I choose spray of dittany, cyperum, frail of flower,

I should have thought in a dream you would have brought some lovely, perilous thing, orchids piled in a great sheath, as who would say (in a dream),

I saw the first pear as it fell— the honey—seeking, golden—banded, the yellow swarm was not more fleet than I,

Where the slow river meets the tide, a red swan lifts red wings and darker beak, and underneath the purple down

O be swift— we have always known you wanted us… We fled inland with our flocks. we pastured them in hollows, cut off from the wind