On the Maine Rocks

The hard wafers of rock tightly pinned on every side,

I stand, facing the sea... The slash of the water,

A moon with four slivers of cloud making a tree of light,

Speckling the swells as far as I can see,

Ocean and rock leaping together, sounding -

Something of these I take to me.

The black sides of the waves tower, fade out;

The light motions - and the water slaps down hard

With long coiling tons of weight:

A grey tide slowly moves its thunderers nearer my feet.

I think that my love for you is like this sea,

Restless within me, shaking my body like mighty shoulders

of an undivined power.

I feel its echo in my heart; I hear its heavy tread on the

flat wastes -

A love terrible and searing, struggling its way

And crashing on rocks within, as I stand with the universe

moving about me...

A love terrible as the sea, and like the sea

Never to be satisfied or fulfilled.