Iii

Stay--stay-- But terror has caught us now. We passed the men in ships. We dared deeper than the fisher-folk, And you strike us with terror, O bright shaft.

Flame passes under us, And sparks that unknot the flesh, Sorrow, splitting bone from bone-- Splendour athwart our eyes, And rifts in the splendour-- Sparks and scattered light.

Many warned of this. Men said: There are wrecks on the fore-beach. Wind will beat your ship. There is no shelter in that headland. It is useless waste, that edge, That front of rock. Sea-gulls clang beyond the breakers-- None venture to that spot.