The splendour of its heaven-reflecting gleams,

A level wealth of tints, calm as the sky

That broods above our own mortality:

The temporal seas had fled,

And ah, what hopes, what fears, what mystic dreams

Could ruffle it now from any deeper deep?

Content in its own bounds it slept a changeless sleep.

IX

Suddenly, from that heaven beyond belief,

Suddenly, from that world beyond its ken,

Dashing great billows o'er its rosy bars,

Shivering its dreams into a thousand stars,

Flooding each sun-dried reef

With waves of colour, (as once, for mortal men

Bethesda's angel) with blue eyes, wide and wild,

Naked into the pool there stepped a little child.

X

Her red-gold hair against the far green sea

Blew thickly out: her slender golden form

Shone dark against the richly waning West

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