A BIT OF ROCK 45 



Under the jutting crags, I then advanc'd 



Mine armour'd eye over the giddy edge 



Of that unsounded gulf and peer'd below. 



It was as though I saw a dream in stone 



Built on the viewless air : not one, but three 



Cloud-pointing spires bathed in a sea of light 



Whose waves in dazzling whiteness backward roll'd 



From off their sloping sides, while deep below 



The darkness closed upon them and denied 



Me further sight. Such harmony of form 



Dwelt in those stony points that pierc'd the mists, 



They seemed indeed the topmost pinnacles 



Of some cathedral in whose cloister'd aisles 



Men ponder on the infinite, and think 



Of things beyond the clamour of an hour, 



A day, a lifetime. This was all I saw. 



Too big was I, too gross for such designs. 



The task was one for delicate Ariel, 



Secure upon a thread of gossamer, 



To leap into the hollow and explore 



What might be hid below." 



It is enough, 

 Sir Scout: the place agrees. Those mystic cones 

 Are under our horizon, and they point 

 Not upward to our zenith, but between 

 Our up and down. The world hath many sides : 

 We see not all. And what are up and down 

 To him whose eye beholds the tiny earth 

 Suck'd in the whirl which draws the sun to join 

 The streaming stars, and flings both stars and us 

 To swirl in such a maelstrom ? Oftentimes, 

 Like minnows in a creek, we judge the stream 

 When living in an eddy, quarrelling 

 Among ourselves which way the current leads, 

 Our reason hinder'd by the words we use 

 To give our thoughts a body, when we take 

 Symbols for things, and when, perchance, to things 

 Unknowable we rashly give a name. 

 But to our task : how much remains to do 1 

 Reflection now hath held her high consult 

 And calls for Action— Action who is e'er 



