Or haply, my sea-flower, he found thee [Str. 4. 
  Made fast as with anchors to land,
And broke, that his waves might be round thee,
  Thy fetters like rivets of sand? 
And afar by the blast of him drifted
  Thy blossom of beauty was borne,
As a lark by the heart in her lifted
    To mix with the morn?

By what rapture of rage, by what vision [Ant. 4. 
  Of a heavenlier heaven than above,
Was he moved to devise thy division
  From the land as a rest for his love? 
As a nest when his wings would remeasure
  The ways where of old they would be,
As a bride-bed upbuilt for his pleasure
    By sea-rock and sea?

For in no deeps of midmost inland May
More flowerbright flowers the hawthorn, or more sweet
Swells the wild gold of the earth for wandering feet;
For on no northland way
Crowds the close whin-bloom closer, set like thee
With thorns about for fangs of sea-rock shown
Through blithe lips of the bitter brine to lee;
Nor blithelier landward comes the sea-wind blown,
Nor blithelier leaps the land-wind back to sea: 
Nor louder springs the living song of birds
To shame our sweetest words. 
And in the narrowest of thine hollowest hold
For joy thine aspens quiver as though for cold,
And many a self-lit flower-illumined tree
Outlaughs with snowbright or with rosebright glee
The laughter of the fields whose laugh is gold. 
Yea, even from depth to height,
Even thine own beauty with its own delight
Fulfils thine heart in thee an hundredfold
Beyond the larger hearts of islands bright
With less intense contraction of desire
Self-satiate, centred in its own deep fire;
Of shores not self-enchanted and entranced
By heavenly severance from all shadow of mirth
Or mourning upon earth: 
As thou, by no similitude enhanced,
By no fair foil made fairer, but alone
Fair as could be no beauty save thine own,
And wondrous as no world-beholden wonder: 
Throned, with the world’s most perilous sea for throne,
And praised from all its choral throats of thunder.

  Yet one praise hast thou, holier [Str. 5. 
    Than praise of theirs may be,
  To exalt thee, wert thou lowlier
    Than all that take the sea
  With shores whence waves ebb slowlier
    Than these fall off from thee;

That One, whose name gives glory, [Ant. 5. 
  One man whose life makes light,
One crowned and throned in story
  Above all empire’s height,
Came, where thy straits run hoary,
  To hold thee fast in sight;

With hallowing eyes to hold thee, [Str. 6. 
  With rapturous heart to read,
To encompass and enfold thee
  With love whence all men feed,
To brighten and behold thee,
  Who is mightiest of man’s seed: