Sea garden / H. D. [electronic text]

THE CLIFF TEMPLE

I

GREAT, bright portal, shelf of rock, rocks fitted in long ledges, rocks fitted to dark, to silver granite, to lighter rock— clean cut, white against white.

High—high—and no hill-goat tramples—no mountain-sheep has set foot on your fine grass; you lift, you are the-world-edge, pillar for the sky-arch.

The world heaved— we are next to the sky: over us, sea-hawks shout, gulls sweep past— the terrible breakers are silent from this place.

Below us, on the rock-edge, where earth is caught in the fissures of the jagged cliff, a small tree stiffens in the gale, it bends—but its white flowers are fragrant at this height.

And under and under, the wind booms: it whistles, it thunders, it growls—it presses the grass beneath its great feet.

II

I said: for ever and for ever, must I follow you through the stones? I catch at you—you lurch: you are quicker than my hand-grasp.

I wondered at you. I shouted—dear—mysterious—beautiful— white myrtle-flesh.

I was splintered and torn: the hill-path mounted swifter than my feet.

Could a daemon avenge this hurt, I would cry to him—could a ghost, I would shout—O evil, follow this god, taunt him with his evil and his vice.

III

Shall I hurl myself from here, shall I leap and be nearer you? Shall I drop, beloved, beloved, ankle against ankle? Would you pity me, O white breast?

If I woke, would you pity me, would our eyes meet?

Have you heard, do you know how I climbed this rock? My breath caught, I lurched forward— I stumbled in the ground-myrtle.

Have you heard, O god seated on the cliff, how far toward the ledges of your house, how far I had to walk?

IV

Over me the wind swirls. I have stood on your portal and I know— you are further than this, still further on another cliff.