kelp shifts,

Falling and lifting, tossing and drifting,
And under all a deep, dull roar,
Dying and swelling, forevermore,
Rock and moan and roar alone,
And the dread of some nameless thing
unknown,

These make Appledore.

These make Appledore by night:
Then there are monsters left and right;
Every rock is a different monster;
All you have read of, fancied, dreamed,
When you waked at night because you
screamed,

There they lie for half a mile,
Jumbled together in a pile,

And (though you know they never once stir),

If you look long, they seem to moving

Just as plainly as plain can be,

be

Splits the water with sudden thud;-
This is Appledore by day.

A common island, you will say;
But stay a moment: only climb
Up to the highest rock of the isle,

shoving

Out into the awful sea,

spout

Him first on shore the coaster divines Through the early gray, and sees him shake

The morning mist from his scalp-lock of pines;

Him first the skipper makes out in the west,

Ere the earliest sunstreak shoots tremulous,

Plashing with orange the palpitant lines
Of mutable billow, crest after crest,
And murmurs Agamenticus!
As if it were the name of a saint.

But is that a mountain playing cloud, Or a cloud playing mountain, just there, so faint?

Look along over the low right shoulder
Of Agamenticus into that crowd
Of brassy thunderheads behind it ;
Now you have caught it, but, ere you
are older

By half an hour, you will lose it and

find it

A score of times; while you look 't is

gone,

And, just as you 've given it up, anon
It is there again, till your weary eyes
Fancy they see it waver and rise,
With its brother clouds; it is Agio-
chook,

There if you seek not, and gone if you look,

Ninety miles off as the eagle flies.

But mountains make not all the shore The mainland shows to Appledore ; Eight miles the heaving water spreads To a long low coast with beaches and

heads

That run through unimagined mazes, As the lights and shades and magical hazes

Put them away or bring them near, Shimmering, sketched out for thirty miles

Between two capes that waver like threads,

And sink in the ocean, and reappear,
Crumbled and melted to little isles,
With filmy trees, that seem the mere
Half-fancies of drowsy atmosphere;
And see the beach there, where it is
Flat as a threshing-floor, beaten and
packed

With the flashing flails of weariless

seas,

How it lifts and looms to a precipice,

Eastward as far as the eye can see,
Still eastward, eastward, endlessly,
The sparkle and tremor of purple sea
That rises before you, a flickering hill,
On and on to the shut of the sky,
And beyond, you fancy it sloping until
The same multitudinous throb and thril
That vibrate under your dizzy eye

In ripples of orange and pink are sent Where the poppied sails doze on the yard,

And the clumsy junk and proa lie
Sunk deep with precious woods and
nard,

Mid the palmy isles of the Orient.
Those leaning towers of clouded white
On the farthest brink of doubtful ocean,
That shorten and shorten out of sight,
Yet seem on the selfsame spot to stay,
Receding with a motionless motion,
Fading to dubious films of gray,
Lost, dimly found, then vanished
wholly,

Will rise again, the great world under, First films, then towers, then highheaped clouds,

Whose nearing outlines sharpen slowly
Into tall ships with cobweb shrouds,
That fill long Mongol eyes with wonder,
Crushing the violet wave to spray
Past some low headland of Cathay ;-
What was that sigh which seemed so

near,

Chilling your fancy to the core?
T is only the sad old sea you hear,
That seems to seek forevermore
Something it cannot find, and so,
Sighing, seeks on, and tells its woe
To the pitiless breakers of Appledore.

V.

How looks Appledore in a storm? I have seen it when its crags seemed frantic,

Butting against the mad Atlantic, When surge on surge would heap enorme, Cliffs of emerald topped with snow, That lifted and lifted, and then let go A great white avalanche of thunder,

A grinding, blinding, deafening ire Monadnock might have trembled under; And the island, whose rock-roots pierce below

To where they are warmed with the central fire,

You could feel its granite fibres racked, As it seemed to plunge with a shudder and thrill

Right at the breast of the swooping hill,

And to rise again snorting a cataract Of rage-froth from every cranny and ledge,

While the sea drew its breath in hoarse and deep,

And the next vast breaker curled its edge,

Gathering itself for a mightier leap.

North, east, and south there are reefs and breakers

You would never dream of in smooth weather,

That toss and gore the sea for acres, Bellowing and gnashing and snarling together;

Look northward, where Duck Island lies,
And over its crown you will see arise,
Against a background of slaty skies,
A row of pillars still and white,
That glimmer, and then are out of
sight,

As if the moon should suddenly kiss, While you crossed the gusty desert by night,

The long colonnades of Persepolis ; Look southward for White Island light, The lantern stands ninety feet o'er the tide; There is first a half-mile of tumult and fight,

Of dash and roar and tumble and fright, And surging bewilderment wild and wide,

Where the breakers struggle left and right,

Then a mile or more of rushing sea, And then the lighthouse slim and lone; And whenever the weight of ocean is thrown

Full and fair on White Island head,
A great mist-jotun you will see
Lifting himself up silently
High and huge o'er the lighthouse top,
With hands of wavering spray outspread,
Groping after the little tower,

That seems to shrink and shorten and

cower,

Till the monster's arms of a sudden drop, And silently and fruitlessly

He sinks again into the sea.

You, meanwhile, where drenched you stand,

Awaken once more to the rush and roar,

And on the rock-point tighten your hand,

As you turn and see a valley deep,

That was not there a moment before, Suck rattling down between you and a heap

Of toppling billow, whose instant fall Must sink the whole island once for all,

Or watch the silenter, stealthier seas

Feeling their way to you more and

more;

If they once should clutch you high as the knees,

They would whirl you down like a sprig of kelp,

Beyond all reach of hope or help; :-
And such in a storm is Appledore.

VI.

'Tis the sight of a lifetime to behold The great shorn sun as you see it now, Across eight miles of undulant gold That widens landward, weltered and rolled,

With freaks of shadow and crimson stains;

To see the solid mountain brow
As it notches the disk, and gains and
gains

Until there comes, you scarce know when,
A tremble of fire o'er the parted lips
Of cloud and mountain, which vanishes;

then

From the body of day the sun-soul slips