He holds him with his glittering eye,
And listens like a three years' child.
Red as a rose is she.
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.
As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.
Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies with upright keel.
The nightmare Life-in-Death was she.
The sun's rim dips; the stars rush out:
At one stride comes the dark;
With far-heard whisper o'er the sea,
Off shot the spectre-bark.
And thou art long and lank and brown,
As is the ribbed sea-sand.
Alone, alone,--all, all alone;
Alone on a wide, wide sea.
The moving moon went up the sky,
And nowhere did abide;
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside.
A spring of love gush'd from my heart,
And I bless'd them unaware.
Oh sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole.
A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.
Like one that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head,
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.
So lonely 't was, that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.
He prayeth well who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.
He prayeth best who loveth best
All things both great and small.
A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn.
And the spring comes slowly up this way.
A lady richly clad as she,
Beautiful exceedingly.
Carv'd with figures strange and sweet,
All made out of the carver's brain.
Her gentle limbs did she undress,
And lay down in her loveliness.
A sight to dream of, not to tell!
That saints will aid if men will call;
For the blue sky bends over all!