A Fragment

O pouring westering streams     Shouting that I have leapt the mountain bar,     Down curve on curve my journey's white way gleams -     My road along the river of return.     I know the countries where the white moons burn,     And heavy star on star     Dips on the pale and crystal desert hills.     I know the river of the sun that fills     With founts of gold the lakes of Orient sky.             *        *        *        *        *     And I have heard a voice of broken seas     And from the cliffs a cry.     Ah still they learn, those cave-eared Cyclades,     The Triton's friendly or his fearful horn,     And why the deep sea-bells but seldom chime,     And how those waves and with what spell-swept rhyme     In years of morning, on a summer's morn     Whispering round his castle on the coast,     Lured young Achilles from his haunted sleep     And drave him out to dive beyond those deep     Dim purple windows of the empty swell,     His ivory body flitting like a ghost     Over the holes where flat blind fishes dwell,     All to embrace his mother thrond in her shell.