10 Best Famous Shallows Poems

Here is a collection of the top 10 all-time best famous Shallows poems. This is a select list of the best famous Shallows poetry. Reading, writing, and enjoying famous Shallows poetry (as well as classical and contemporary poems) is a great past time. These top poems are the best examples of shallows poems.

• All Famous Shallows Poems

 To drive Paul out of any lumber camp
All that was needed was to say to him,
"How is the wife, Paul?"--and he'd disappear.
Some said it was because be bad no wife,
And hated to be twitted on the subject;
Others because he'd come within a day
Or so of having one, and then been Jilted;
Others because he'd had one once, a good one,
Who'd run away with someone else and left him;
And others still because he had one now
He only had to be reminded of--
He was all duty to her in a minute:
He had to run right off to look her up,
As if to say, "That's so, how is my wife?
I hope she isn't getting into mischief."
No one was anxious to get rid of Paul.
He'd been the hero of the mountain camps
Ever since, just to show them, he bad slipped
The bark of a whole tamarack off whole
As clean as boys do off a willow twig
To make a willow whistle on a Sunday
April by subsiding meadow brooks.
They seemed to ask him just to see him go,
"How is the wife, Paul?" and he always went.
He never stopped to murder anyone
Who asked the question. He just disappeared--
Nobody knew in what direction,
Although it wasn't usually long
Before they beard of him in some new camp,
The same Paul at the same old feats of logging.
The question everywhere was why should Paul
Object to being asked a civil question--
A man you could say almost anything to
Short of a fighting word. You have the answers.
And there was one more not so fair to Paul:
That Paul had married a wife not his equal.
Paul was ashamed of her. To match a hero
She would have had to be a heroine;
Instead of which she was some half-breed squaw.
But if the story Murphy told was true,
She wasn't anything to be ashamed of.

 You know Paul could do wonders. Everyone's
Heard how he thrashed the horses on a load
That wouldn't budge, until they simply stretched
Their rawhide harness from the load to camp.
Paul told the boss the load would be all right,
"The sun will bring your load in"--and it did--
By shrinking the rawhide to natural length.
That's what is called a stretcher. But I guess
The one about his jumping so's to land
With both his feet at once against the ceiling,
And then land safely right side up again,
Back on the floor, is fact or pretty near fact.
Well, this is such a yarn. Paul sawed his wife
Out of a white-pine log. Murphy was there
And, as you might say, saw the lady born.
Paul worked at anything in lumbering.
He'd been bard at it taking boards away
For--I forget--the last ambitious sawyer
To want to find out if he couldn't pile
The lumber on Paul till Paul begged for mercy.
They'd sliced the first slab off a big butt log,
And the sawyer had slammed the carriage back
To slam end-on again against the saw teeth.
To judge them by the way they caught themselves
When they saw what had happened to the log,
They must have had a guilty expectation
Something was going to go with their slambanging.
Something bad left a broad black streak of grease
On the new wood the whole length of the log
Except, perhaps, a foot at either end.
But when Paul put his finger in the grease,
It wasn't grease at all, but a long slot.
The log was hollow. They were sawing pine.
"First time I ever saw a hollow pine.
That comes of having Paul around the place.
Take it to bell for me," the sawyer said.
Everyone had to have a look at it
And tell Paul what he ought to do about it.
(They treated it as his.) "You take a jackknife,
And spread the opening, and you've got a dugout
All dug to go a-fishing in." To Paul
The hollow looked too sound and clean and empty
Ever to have housed birds or beasts or bees.
There was no entrance for them to get in by.
It looked to him like some new kind of hollow
He thought he'd better take his jackknife to.
So after work that evening be came back
And let enough light into it by cutting
To see if it was empty. He made out in there
A slender length of pith, or was it pith?
It might have been the skin a snake had cast
And left stood up on end inside the tree
The hundred years the tree must have been growing.
More cutting and he bad this in both hands,
And looking from it to the pond nearby,
Paul wondered how it would respond to water.
Not a breeze stirred, but just the breath of air
He made in walking slowly to the beach
Blew it once off his hands and almost broke it.
He laid it at the edge, where it could drink.
At the first drink it rustled and grew limp.
At the next drink it grew invisible.
Paul dragged the shallows for it with his fingers,
And thought it must have melted. It was gone.
And then beyond the open water, dim with midges,
Where the log drive lay pressed against the boom,
It slowly rose a person, rose a girl,
Her wet hair heavy on her like a helmet,
Who, leaning on a log, looked back at Paul.
And that made Paul in turn look back
To see if it was anyone behind him
That she was looking at instead of him.
(Murphy had been there watching all the time,
But from a shed where neither of them could see him.)
There was a moment of suspense in birth
When the girl seemed too waterlogged to live,
Before she caught her first breath with a gasp
And laughed. Then she climbed slowly to her feet,
And walked off, talking to herself or Paul,
Across the logs like backs of alligators,
Paul taking after her around the pond.

 Next evening Murphy and some other fellows
Got drunk, and tracked the pair up Catamount,
From the bare top of which there is a view
TO other hills across a kettle valley.
And there, well after dark, let Murphy tell it,
They saw Paul and his creature keeping house.
It was the only glimpse that anyone
Has had of Paul and her since Murphy saw them
Falling in love across the twilight millpond.
More than a mile across the wilderness
They sat together halfway up a cliff
In a small niche let into it, the girl
Brightly, as if a star played on the place,
Paul darkly, like her shadow. All the light
Was from the girl herself, though, not from a star,
As was apparent from what happened next.
All those great ruffians put their throats together,
And let out a loud yell, and threw a bottle,
As a brute tribute of respect to beauty.
Of course the bottle fell short by a mile,
But the shout reached the girl and put her light out.
She went out like a firefly, and that was all.

 So there were witnesses that Paul was married
And not to anyone to be ashamed of
Everyone had been wrong in judging Paul.
Murphy told me Paul put on all those airs
About his wife to keep her to himself.
Paul was what's called a terrible possessor.
Owning a wife with him meant owning her.
She wasn't anybody else's business,
Either to praise her or much as name her,
And he'd thank people not to think of her.
Murphy's idea was that a man like Paul
Wouldn't be spoken to about a wife
In any way the world knew how to speak.

 Below are eleven Buson haiku
beginning with the phrase
'The short night--'


The short night--
on the hairy caterpillar
beads of dew.

The short night--
patrolmen
washing in the river.

The short night--
bubbles of crab froth
among the river reeds.

The short night--
a broom thrown away
on the beach.

The short night--
the Oi River
has sunk two feet.

The short night--
on the outskirts of the village
a small shop opening.

The short night--
broken, in the shallows,
a crescent moon.

The short night--
the peony
has opened.

The short night--
waves beating in,
an abandoned fire.

The short night--
near the pillow
a screen turning silver.

The short night--
shallow footprints
on the beach at Yui.








User Submitted "The short night--" Haiku

Submit your own haiku beginning with the line
"The short night--"
and we'll post the best ones below!

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The short night-
a watery moon
stands alone over the hill

 Maggie



The short night--
just as I'm falling asleep
my wife's waking up

 Larry Bole

For All

 Ah to be alive
 on a mid-September morn
 fording a stream
 barefoot, pants rolled up,
 holding boots, pack on,
 sunshine, ice in the shallows,
 northern rockies.

 Rustle and shimmer of icy creek waters
 stones turn underfoot, small and hard as toes
 cold nose dripping
 singing inside
 creek music, heart music,
 smell of sun on gravel.

 I pledge allegiance

 I pledge allegiance to the soil
 of Turtle Island,
 and to the beings who thereon dwell
 one ecosystem
 in diversity
 under the sun
 With joyful interpenetration for all.

 The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.

I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.

I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.

The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil, 
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used. 
The pitcher cries for water to carry
and a person for work that is real.

 "Give me of your bark, O Birch-tree! 
Of your yellow bark, O Birch-tree! 
Growing by the rushing river, 
Tall and stately in the valley! 
I a light canoe will build me, 
Build a swift Cheemaun for sailing, 
That shall float on the river, 
Like a yellow leaf in Autumn, 
Like a yellow water-lily!
"Lay aside your cloak, O Birch-tree! 
Lay aside your white-skin wrapper, 
For the Summer-time is coming, 
And the sun is warm in heaven, 
And you need no white-skin wrapper!"
Thus aloud cried Hiawatha 
In the solitary forest, 
By the rushing Taquamenaw, 
When the birds were singing gayly, 
In the Moon of Leaves were singing, 
And the sun, from sleep awaking, 
Started up and said, "Behold me! 
Gheezis, the great Sun, behold me!"
And the tree with all its branches 
Rustled in the breeze of morning, 
Saying, with a sigh of patience, 
"Take my cloak, O Hiawatha!"
With his knife the tree he girdled; 
Just beneath its lowest branches, 
Just above the roots, he cut it, 
Till the sap came oozing outward;
Down the trunk, from top to bottom, 
Sheer he cleft the bark asunder, 
With a wooden wedge he raised it, 
Stripped it from the trunk unbroken.
"Give me of your boughs, O Cedar! 
Of your strong and pliant branches, 
My canoe to make more steady, 
Make more strong and firm beneath me!"
Through the summit of the Cedar 
Went a sound, a cry of horror, 
Went a murmur of resistance; 
But it whispered, bending downward, 
'Take my boughs, O Hiawatha!"
Down he hewed the boughs of cedar, 
Shaped them straightway to a frame-work, 
Like two bows he formed and shaped them, 
Like two bended bows together.
"Give me of your roots, O Tamarack! 
Of your fibrous roots, O Larch-tree! 
My canoe to bind together, 
So to bind the ends together 
That the water may not enter, 
That the river may not wet me!"
And the Larch, with all its fibres, 
Shivered in the air of morning, 
Touched his forehead with its tassels, 
Slid, with one long sigh of sorrow. 
"Take them all, O Hiawatha!"
From the earth he tore the fibres, 
Tore the tough roots of the Larch-tree, 
Closely sewed the hark together, 
Bound it closely to the frame-work.
"Give me of your balm, O Fir-tree! 
Of your balsam and your resin, 
So to close the seams together 
That the water may not enter, 
That the river may not wet me!"
And the Fir-tree, tall and sombre, 
Sobbed through all its robes of darkness, 
Rattled like a shore with pebbles, 
Answered wailing, answered weeping, 
"Take my balm, O Hiawatha!"
And he took the tears of balsam, 
Took the resin of the Fir-tree, 
Smeared therewith each seam and fissure, 
Made each crevice safe from water.
"Give me of your quills, O Hedgehog! 
All your quills, O Kagh, the Hedgehog! 
I will make a necklace of them, 
Make a girdle for my beauty, 
And two stars to deck her bosom!"
From a hollow tree the Hedgehog 
With his sleepy eyes looked at him, 
Shot his shining quills, like arrows, 
Saying with a drowsy murmur, 
Through the tangle of his whiskers, 
"Take my quills, O Hiawatha!"
From the ground the quills he gathered, 
All the little shining arrows, 
Stained them red and blue and yellow, 
With the juice of roots and berries; 
Into his canoe he wrought them, 
Round its waist a shining girdle, 
Round its bows a gleaming necklace, 
On its breast two stars resplendent.
Thus the Birch Canoe was builded 
In the valley, by the river,
In the bosom of the forest; 
And the forest's life was in it, 
All its mystery and its magic, 
All the lightness of the birch-tree, 
All the toughness of the cedar, 
All the larch's supple sinews; 
And it floated on the river 
Like a yellow leaf in Autumn, 
Like a yellow water-lily.
Paddles none had Hiawatha, 
Paddles none he had or needed, 
For his thoughts as paddles served him, 
And his wishes served to guide him;
Swift or slow at will he glided, 
Veered to right or left at pleasure.
Then he called aloud to Kwasind, 
To his friend, the strong man, Kwasind, 
Saying, "Help me clear this river 
Of its sunken logs and sand-bars."
Straight into the river Kwasind 
Plunged as if he were an otter, 
Dived as if he were a beaver, 
Stood up to his waist in water, 
To his arm-pits in the river, 
Swam and scouted in the river, 
Tugged at sunken logs and branches, 
With his hands he scooped the sand-bars, 
With his feet the ooze and tangle.
And thus sailed my Hiawatha 
Down the rushing Taquamenaw, 
Sailed through all its bends and windings, 
Sailed through all its deeps and shallows, 
While his friend, the strong man, Kwasind, 
Swam the deeps, the shallows waded.
Up and down the river went they, 
In and out among its islands, 
Cleared its bed of root and sand-bar, 
Dragged the dead trees from its channel, 
Made its passage safe and certain, 
Made a pathway for the people, 
From its springs among the mountains, 
To the waters of Pauwating, 
To the bay of Taquamenaw.

 From cold Norse caves or buccaneer Southern seas
Oft come repenting tempests here to die;
Bewailing old-time wrecks and robberies,
They shrive to priestly pines with many a sigh,
Breathe salutary balms through lank-lock'd hair
Of sick men's heads, and soon -- this world outworn --
Sink into saintly heavens of stirless air,
Clean from confessional. One died, this morn,
And willed the world to wise Queen Tranquil: she,
Sweet sovereign Lady of all souls that bide
In contemplation, tames the too bright skies
Like that faint agate film, far down descried,
Restraining suns in sudden thoughtful eyes
Which flashed but now. Blest distillation rare
Of o'er-rank brightness filtered waterwise
Through all the earths in heaven -- thou always fair,
Still virgin bride of e'er-creating thought --
Dream-worker, in whose dream the Future's wrought --
Healer of hurts, free balm for bitter wrongs --
Most silent mother of all sounding songs --
Thou that dissolvest hells to make thy heaven --
Thou tempest's heir, that keep'st no tempest leaven --
But after winds' and thunders' wide mischance
Dost brood, and better thine inheritance --
Thou privacy of space, where each grave Star
As in his own still chamber sits afar
To meditate, yet, by thy walls unpent,
Shines to his fellows o'er the firmament --
Oh! as thou liv'st in all this sky and sea
That likewise lovingly do live in thee,
So melt my soul in thee, and thine in me,
Divine Tranquillity!

Gray Pelican, poised where yon broad shallows shine,
Know'st thou, that finny foison all is mine
In the bag below thy beak -- yet thine, not less?
For God, of His most gracious friendliness,
Hath wrought that every soul, this loving morn,
Into all things may be new-corporate born,
And each live whole in all: I sail with thee,
Thy Pelican's self is mine; yea, silver Sea,
In this large moment all thy fishes, ripples, bights,
Pale in-shore greens and distant blue delights,
White visionary sails, long reaches fair
By moon-horn'd strands that film the far-off air,
Bright sparkle-revelations, secret majesties,
Shells, wrecks and wealths, are mine; yea, Orange-trees,
That lift your small world-systems in the light,
Rich sets of round green heavens studded bright
With globes of fruit that like still planets shine,
Mine is your green-gold universe; yea, mine,
White slender Lighthouse fainting to the eye
That wait'st on yon keen cape-point wistfully,
Like to some maiden spirit pausing pale,
New-wing'd, yet fain to sail
Above the serene Gulf to where a bridegroom soul
Calls o'er the soft horizon -- mine thy dole
Of shut undaring wings and wan desire --
Mine, too, thy later hope and heavenly fire
Of kindling expectation; yea, all sights,
All sounds, that make this morn -- quick flights
Of pea-green paroquets 'twixt neighbor trees,
Like missives and sweet morning inquiries
From green to green, in green -- live oaks' round heads,
Busy with jays for thoughts -- grays, whites and reds
Of pranked woodpeckers that ne'er gossip out,
But alway tap at doors and gad about --
Robins and mocking-birds that all day long
Athwart straight sunshine weave cross-threads of song,
Shuttles of music -- clouds of mosses gray
That rain me rains of pleasant thoughts alway
From a low sky of leaves -- faint yearning psalms
Of endless metre breathing through the palms
That crowd and lean and gaze from off the shore
Ever for one that cometh nevermore --
Palmettos ranked, with childish spear-points set
Against no enemy -- rich cones that fret
High roofs of temples shafted tall with pines --
Green, grateful mangroves where the sand-beach shines --
Long lissome coast that in and outward swerves,
The grace of God made manifest in curves --
All riches, goods and braveries never told
Of earth, sun, air and heaven -- now I hold
Your being in my being; I am ye,
And ye myself; yea, lastly, Thee,
God, whom my roads all reach, howe'er they run,
My Father, Friend, Beloved, dear All-One,
Thee in my soul, my soul in Thee, I feel,
Self of my self. Lo, through my sense doth steal
Clear cognizance of all selves and qualities,
Of all existence that hath been or is,
Of all strange haps that men miscall of chance,
And all the works of tireless circumstance:
Each borders each, like mutual sea and shore,
Nor aught misfits his neighbor that's before,
Nor him that's after -- nay, through this still air,
Out of the North come quarrels, and keen blare
Of challenge by the hot-breath'd parties blown;
Yet break they not this peace with alien tone,
Fray not my heart, nor fright me for my land,
-- I hear from all-wards, allwise understand,
The great bird Purpose bears me twixt her wings,
And I am one with all the kinsmen things
That e'er my Father fathered. Oh, to me
All questions solve in this tranquillity:
E'en this dark matter, once so dim, so drear,
Now shines upon my spirit heavenly-clear:
Thou, Father, without logic, tellest me
How this divine denial true may be,
-- How `All's in each, yet every one of all
Maintains his Self complete and several.'

 Land lies in water; it is shadowed green.
Shadows, or are they shallows, at its edges
showing the line of long sea-weeded ledges
where weeds hang to the simple blue from green.
Or does the land lean down to lift the sea from under,
drawing it unperturbed around itself?
Along the fine tan sandy shelf
is the land tugging at the sea from under?

The shadow of Newfoundland lies flat and still.
Labrador's yellow, where the moony Eskimo
has oiled it. We can stroke these lovely bays,
under a glass as if they were expected to blossom,
or as if to provide a clean cage for invisible fish.
The names of seashore towns run out to sea,
the names of cities cross the neighboring mountains
--the printer here experiencing the same excitement
as when emotion too far exceeds its cause.
These peninsulas take the water between thumb and finger
like women feeling for the smoothness of yard-goods.

Mapped waters are more quiet than the land is,
lending the land their waves' own conformation:
and Norway's hare runs south in agitation,
profiles investigate the sea, where land is.
Are they assigned, or can the countries pick their colors?
--What suits the character or the native waters best.
Topography displays no favorites; North's as near as West.
More delicate than the historians' are the map-makers' colors.

 and the sun weilds mercy
but like a jet torch carried to high,
and the jets whip across its sight
and rockets leap like toads,
and the boys get out the maps
and pin-cuishon the moon,
old green cheese,
no life there but too much on earth:
our unwashed India boys
crosssing their legs,playing pipes,
starving with sucked in bellies,
watching the snakes volute
like beautiful women in the hungry air;
the rockets leap,
the rockets leap like hares,
clearing clump and dog
replacing out-dated bullets;
the Chineses still carve
in jade,quietly stuffing rice
into their hunger, a hunger
a thousand years old,
their muddy rivers moving with fire
and song, barges, houseboats
pushed by drifting poles
of waiting without wanting;
in Turkey they face the East
on their carpets
praying to a purple god
who smokes and laughs
and sticks fingers in their eyes
blinding them, as gods will do;
but the rockets are ready: peace is no longer,
for some reason,precious;
madness drifts like lily pads
on a pond circling senselessly;
the painters paint dipping
their reds and greens and yellows,
poets rhyme their lonliness,
musicians starve as always
and the novelists miss the mark,
but not the pelican , the gull;
pelicans dip and dive, rise,
shaking shocked half-dead
radioactive fish from their beaks;
indeed, indeed, the waters wash
the rocks with slime; and on wall st.
the market staggers like a lost drunk
looking for his key; ah,
this will be a good one,by God:
it will take us back to the
sabre-teeth, the winged monkey
scrabbling in pits over bits
of helmet, instrument and glass;
a lightning crashes across
the window and in a million rooms
lovers lie entwined and lost
and sick as peace;
the sky still breaks red and orange for the
painters-and for the lovers,
flowers open as they always have
opened but covered with thin dust
of rocket fuel and mushrooms,
poison mushrooms; it's a bad time,
a dog-sick time-curtain
act 3, standing room only,
SOLD OUT, SOLD OUT, SOLD OUT again,
by god,by somebody and something,
by rockets and generals and
leaders, by poets , doctors, comedians,
by manufacturers of soup
and biscuits, Janus-faced hucksters
of their own indexerity;
I can now see now the coal-slick
contanminated fields, a snail or 2,
bile, obsidian, a fish or 3
in the shallows, an obloquy of our
source and our sight.....
has this happend before? is history
a circle that catches itself by the tail,
a dream, a nightmare,
a general's dream, a presidents dream,
a dictators dream...
can't we awaken?
or are the forces of life greater than we are?
can't we awaken? must we foever,
dear freinds, die in our sleep?

 There's no sense in going further -- it's the edge of cultivation,"
 So they said, and I believed it -- broke my land and sowed my crop --
Built my barns and strung my fences in the little border station
 Tucked away below the foothills where the trails run out and stop.

Till a voice, as bad as Conscience, rang interminable changes
 On one everlasting Whisper day and night repeated -- so:
"Something hidden. Go and find it. Go and look behind the Ranges --
 "Something lost behind the Ranges. Lost in wating for you. Go!"

So I went, worn out of patience; never told my nearest neighbours --
 Stole away with pack and ponies -- left 'em drinking in the town;
And the faith that moveth mountains didn't seem to help my labours
 As I faced the sheer main-ranges, whipping up and leading down.

March by march I puzzled through 'em, turning flanks and dodging shoulders,
 Hurried on in hope of water, headed back for lack of grass;
Till I camped above the tree-line -- drifted snow and naked boulders --
 Felt free air astir to windward -- knew I'd stumbled on the Pass.

'Thought to name it for the finder: but that night the Norther found me --
 Froze and killed the plains-bred ponies; so I called the camp Despair
(It's the Railway Gap to-day, though). Then my Whisper waked to hound me: --
 "Something lost behind the Ranges. Over yonder! Go you there!"

Then I knew, the while I doubted -- knew His Hand was certain o'er me.
 Still -- it might be self-delusion -- scores of better men had died --
I could reach the township living, but. . . He knows what terror tore me . . .
 But I didn't . . . but I didn't. I went down the other side,

Till the snow ran out in flowers, and the flowers turned to aloes,
 And the aloes sprung to thickets and a brimming stream ran by;
But the thickets dwined to thorn-scrub, and the water drained to shallows,
 And I dropped again on desert -- blasterd earth, and blasting sky. . . .

I remember lighting fires; I remember sitting by 'em;
 I remember seeing faces, hearing voices, through the smoke;
I remember they were fancy -- for I threw a stone to try 'em.
 "Something lost behind the Ranges" was the only word they spoke.

But at last the country altered -- White Man's country past disputing --
 Rolling grass and open timber, with a hint of hills behind --
There I found me food and water, and I lay a week recruiting.
 Got my strength and lost my nightmares. Then I entered on my find.

Thence I ran my first rough survey -- chose my trees and blazed and ringed 'em --
 Week by week I pried and smhampled -- week by week my findings grew.
Saul he went to look for donkeys, and by God he found a kingdom!
 But by God, who sent His Whisper, I had struck the worth of two!

Up along the hostile mountains, where the hair-poised snowslide shivers --
 Down and through the big fat marshes that the virgin ore-bed stains,
Till I heard the mile-wide mutterings of unimagined rivers,
 And beyond the nameless timber saw illimitable plains!

'Plotted sites of future cities, traced the easy grades between 'em;
 Watched unharnessed rapids wasting fifty thousand head an hour;
Counted leagues of water-frontage through the axe-ripe woods that screen 'em --
 Saw the plant to feed a people -- up and waiting for the power!

Well, I know who'll take the credit -- all the clever chaps that followed --
 Came, a dozen men together -- never knew my desert-fears;
Tracked me by the camps I'd quitted, used the water-holes I hollowed.
 They'll go back and do the talking. They'll be called the Pioneers!

They will find my sites of townships -- not the cities that I set there.
 They will rediscover rivers -- not my rivers heard at night.
By my own old marks and bearings they will show me how to get there,
 By the lonely cairns I builded they will guide my feet aright.

Have I named one single river? Have I claimed one single acre?
 Have I kept one single nugget -- (barring samples)? No, not I!
Because my price was paid me ten times over by my Maker.
 But you wouldn't understand it. You go up and occupy.

Ores you'll find there; wood and cattle; water-transit sure and steady
 (That should keep the railway rates down), coal and iron at your doors.
God took care to hide that country till He judged His people ready,
 Then He chose me for His Whisper, and I've found it, and it's yours!

Yes, your "Never-never country" -- yes, your "edge of cultivation"
 And "no sense in going further" -- till I crossed the range to see.
God forgive me! No, I didn't. It's God's present to our nation.
 Anybody might have found it but -- His Whisper came to Me!

 Those moments, tasted once and never done,
Of long surf breaking in the mid-day sun.
A far-off blow-hole booming like a gun-

The seagulls plane and circle out of sight
Below this thirsty, thrift-encrusted height,
The veined sea-campion buds burst into white

And gorse turns tawny orange, seen beside
Pale drifts of primroses cascading wide
To where the slate falls sheer into the tide.

More than in gardened Surrey, nature spills
A wealth of heather, kidney-vetch and squills
Over these long-defended Cornish hills.

A gun-emplacement of the latest war
Looks older than the hill fort built before
Saxon or Norman headed for the shore.

And in the shadowless, unclouded glare
Deep blue above us fades to whiteness where
A misty sea-line meets the wash of air.

Nut-smell of gorse and honey-smell of ling
Waft out to sea the freshness of the spring
On sunny shallows, green and whispering.

The wideness which the lark-song gives the sky
Shrinks at the clang of sea-birds sailing by
Whose notes are tuned to days when seas are high.

From today's calm, the lane's enclosing green
Leads inland to a usual Cornish scene-
Slate cottages with sycamore between,

Small fields and tellymasts and wires and poles
With, as the everlasting ocean rolls,
Two chapels built for half a hundred souls.