Him first on shore the coaster divines Through the early gray, and sees him shake

The morning mist from his scalp-lock of pines;

Him first the skipper makes out in the west,

Ere the earliest sunstreak shoots tremulous,

Plashing with orange the palpitant lines
Of mutable billow, crest after crest,
And murmurs Agamenticus!
As if it were the name of a saint.
But is that a mountain playing cloud,
Or a cloud playing mountain, just there,
so faint?

Look along over the low right shoulder
Of Agamenticus into that crowd
Of brassy thunderheads behind it ;
Now you have caught it, but, ere you
are older

By half an hour, you will lose it and

find it

A score of times; while you look 't is

gone,

And, just as you 've given it up, anon
It is there again, till your weary eyes
Fancy they see it waver and rise,
With its brother clouds; it is Agio-
chook,

There if you seek not, and gone if you look,

Ninety miles off as the eagle flies.

But mountains make not all the shore The mainland shows to Appledore ; Eight miles the heaving water spreads To a long low coast with beaches and heads

That run through unimagined mazes, As the lights and shades and magical hazes

Put them away or bring them near, Shimmering, sketched out for thirty miles

Between two capes that waver like threads,

And sink in the ocean, and reappear,
Crumbled and melted to little isles,
With filmy trees, that seem the mere
Half-fancies of drowsy atmosphere;
And see the beach there, where it is
Flat as a threshing-floor, beaten and
packed

With the flashing flails of weariless

seas,

How it lifts and looms to a precipice,

Eastward as far as the eye can see,
Still eastward, eastward, endlessly,
The sparkle and tremor of purple sea
That rises before you, a flickering hill,
On and on to the shut of the sky,
And beyond, you fancy it sloping until
The same multitudinous throb and thrill
That vibrate under your dizzy eye

In ripples of orange and pink are sent Where the poppied sails doze on the yard,

And the clumsy junk and proa lie
Sunk deep with precious woods and
nard,

Mid the palmy isles of the Orient.
Those leaning towers of clouded white
On the farthest brink of doubtful ocean,
That shorten and shorten out of sight,
Yet seem on the selfsame spot to stay,
Receding with a motionless motion,
Fading to dubious films of gray,
Lost, dimly found, then vanished
wholly,

Will rise again, the great world under, First films, then towers, then highheaped clouds,

Whose nearing outlines sharpen slowly
Into tall ships with cobweb shrouds,
That fill long Mongol eyes with wonder,
Crushing the violet wave to spray
Past some low headland of Cathay ;-
What was that sigh which seemed so

near,

Chilling your fancy to the core?
'T is only the sad old sea you hear,
That seems to seek forevermore
Something it cannot find, and so,
Sighing, seeks on, and tells its woe
To the pitiless breakers of Appledore.

V.

How looks Appledore in a storm? I have seen it when its crags seemed frantic,

Butting against the mad Atlantic, When surge on surge would heap enorme, Cliffs of emerald topped with snow, That lifted and lifted, and then let go A great white avalanche of thunder,

A grinding, blinding, deafening ire Monadnock might have trembled under; And the island, whose rock-roots pierce below

To where they are warmed with the central fire,

You could feel its granite fibres racked, As it seemed to plunge with a shudder and thrill

Right at the breast of the swooping hill,

And to rise again snorting a cataract Of rage-froth from every cranny and ledge,

While the sea drew its breath in hoarse and deep,

And the next vast breaker curled its edge,

Gathering itself for a mightier leap.

North, east, and south there are reefs and breakers

You would never dream of in smooth weather,

That toss and gore the sea for acres, Bellowing and gnashing and snarling together;

Look northward, where Duck Island lies,
And over its crown you will see arise,
Against a background of slaty skies,

A row of pillars still and white,
That glimmer, and then are gone from
sight,

As if the moon should suddenly kiss, While you crossed the gusty desert by night,

The long colonnades of Persepolis; Look southward for White Island light, The lantern stands ninety feet o'er the

tide; There is first a half-mile of tumult and fight,

Of dash and roar and tumble and fright, And surging bewilderment wild and wide,

Where the breakers struggle left and right,

core;

Yet they momently cool and dampen and deaden,

The crimson turns golden, the gold turns leaden,

Hardening into one black bar
O'er which, from the hollow heaven afar,
Shoots a splinter of light like diamond,
Half seen, half fancied; by and by
Beyond whatever is most beyond
In the uttermost waste of desert sky,
Grows a star;

And over it, visible spirit of dew,
Ah, stir not, speak not, hold your
breath,

Or surely the miracle vanisheth,

The new moon, tranced in unspeakable

blue!

| Of that long cloud-bar in the West,
Whose nether edge, erelong, you see
The silvery chrism in turn anoint,
And then the tiniest rosy point
Touched doubtfully and timidly
Into the dark blue's chilly strip,
As some mute, wondering thing below,
Awakened by the thrilling glow,
Might, looking up, see Dian dip
One lucent foot's delaying tip
In Latmian fountains long ago.

Knew you

Here is no startle of dreaming bird That sings in his sleep, or strives to sing;

what silence was before?

Nor noise of any living thing,
Here is no sough of branches stirred,
Such as one hears by night on shore;
Only, now and then, a sigh,
With fickle intervals between,
Such as Andromeda might have heard,
Sometimes far, and sometimes nigh,
And fancied the huge sea-beast unseen
Turning in sleep; it is the sea
That welters and wavers uneasily
Round the lonely reefs of Appledore.