Heaven’s height bows down to him, signed with his token,
  And the sea’s depth, moved as a heart that yearns,
Heaves up to him, strong as a heart half broken,
  A heart that breaks in a prayer that burns
Of cloud is the shrine of his worship moulded,
  But the altar therein is of sea-shaped stone,
Whereon, with the strength of his wide wings folded,
      Sits death in the dark, alone.

He hears the word of his servant spoken,
  The word that the wind his servant saith,
Storm writes on the front of the night his token,
  That the skies may seem to bow down to death
But the clouds that stoop and the storms that minister
  Serve but as thralls that fulfil their tasks;
And his seal is not set save here on the sinister
      Crests reared of the crownless casques.

Nor flame nor plume of the storm that crowned them
  Gilds or quickens their stark black strength. 
Life lightens and murmurs and laughs right round them,
  At peace with the noon’s whole breadth and length,
At one with the heart of the soft-souled heaven,
  At one with the life of the kind wild land: 
But its touch may unbrace not the strengths of the seven
      Casques hewn of the storm-wind’s hand.

No touch may loosen the black braced helmlets
  For the wild elves’ heads of the wild waves wrought. 
As flowers on the sea are her small green realmlets,
  Like heavens made out of a child’s heart’s thought;
But these as thorns of her desolate places,
  Strong fangs that fasten and hold lives fast: 
And the vizors are framed as for formless faces
      That a dark dream sees go past.

Of fear and of fate are the frontlets fashioned,
  And the heads behind them are dire and dumb. 
When the heart of the darkness is scarce impassioned,
  Thrilled scarce with sense of the wrath to come,
They bear the sign from of old engraven,
  Though peace be round them and strife seem far,
That here is none but the night-wind’s haven,
      With death for the harbour bar.

Of the iron of doom are the casquets carven,
  That never the rivets thereof should burst. 
When the heart of the darkness is hunger-starven,
  And the throats of the gulfs are agape for thirst,
And stars are as flowers that the wind bids wither,
  And dawn is as hope struck dead by fear,
The rage of the ravenous night sets hither,
      And the crown of her work is here.

All shores about and afar lie lonely,
  But lonelier are these than the heart of grief,
These loose-linked rivets of rock, whence only
  Strange life scarce gleams from the sheer main reef,
With a blind wan face in the wild wan morning,
  With a live lit flame on its brows by night,
That the lost may lose not its word’s mute warning
      And the blind by its grace have sight.