SAINT IVES, CORNWALL

                        The rock is all a piled and burrowed town,
                        As though the sea had wrought its balanced shelves
                        And crannies, wherein men may hide themselves,
                        Like lobsters in dark nooks, and lie them down.
                        The slimy-booted rockman, in his brown
                        Hard vest, glides slipperily as the elves
                        He hunts ; not loutishly like him who delves ;
                        The man of prey thus different from the clown.
                        ’Twas he who built this fortress. Is its shape
                        His overcraft towards the fish, to ape
                        The rock the fishes fear not ? Glideth he
                        Lest peeping fish should mark him from the sea ?
                        And when he speaketh, is’t with wave-tuned breath
                        Lest the shy fish should hear him, what he saith ?

                                                                                                JOHN GRAY.

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