The Rock

Slow sloping to its point pyramidal, A brown rock rises from the ocean waste; Seaward, great billows there incessant haste And to their shoreward brethren flash and call. I see the vast horizon rise and fall, As when my blood with many raptures raced; And on that pointed rock, by heaven embraced, I see a maiden lifted over all.

As shines the rose above inferior flowers, So sprang her beauty up, supreme to be; As comes the rainbow on departing showers, So bloomed and faded that fair memory; So stood she "on the top of happy hours," And drank the sunrise glory of the sea.