rther rocks.

Though oak-beams split,
though boats and sea-men flounder,
and the strait grind sand with sand
and cut boulders to sand and drift--

your eyes have pardoned our faults,
your hands have touched us--
you have leaned forward a little
and the waves can never thrust us back
from the splendour of your ragged coast.

MID-DAY

The light beats upon me.
I am startled--
a split leaf crackles on the paved floor--
I am anguished--defeated.

A slight wind shakes the seed-pods--
my thoughts are spent
as the black seeds.
My thoughts tear me,
I dread their fever.
I am scattered in its whirl.
I am scattered like
the hot shrivelled seeds.

The shrivelled seeds
are spilt on the path--
the grass bends with dust,
the grape slips
under its crackled leaf:
yet far beyond the spent seed-pods,
and the blackened stalks of mint,
the poplar is bright on the hill,
the poplar spreads out,
deep-rooted among trees.

O poplar, you are great
among the hill-stones,
while I perish on the path
among the crevices of the rocks.

PURSUIT

What do I care
that the stream is trampled,
the sand on the stream-bank
still holds the print of your foot:
the heel is cut deep.
I see another mark
on the grass ridge of the bank--
it points toward the wood-path.
I have lost the third
in the packed earth.

But here
a wild-hyacinth stalk is snapped:
the purple buds--half ripe--
show deep purple
where your heel pressed.

A patch of flowering grass,
low, trailing--
you brushed this:
the green stems show yellow-green
where you lifted--turned the earth-side
to the light:
this and a dead leaf-spine,
split across,
show where you passed.

You were swift, swift!
here the forest ledge slopes--
rain has furrowed the roots.
Your hand caught at this;
the root snapped under your weight.

I can almost follow the note
where it touched this slender tree
and the next answered--
and the next.

And you climbed yet further!
you stopped by the dwarf-cornel--
whirled on your heels,
doubled on your track.

This is clear--
you fell on the downward slope,
you dragged a bruised thigh--you limped--
you clutched this larc