Sports and gallantries, the stage, the arts, the antics of dancers, The exuberant voices of music, Have charm for children but lack nobility; it is bitter earnestness That makes beauty; the mind Knows, grown adult. A sudden fog-drift muffled the ocean, A throbbing of engines moved in it, At length, a stone's throw out, between the rocks and the vapor, One by one moved shadows Out of the mystery, shadows, fishing-boats, trailing each other, Following the cliff for guidance, Holding a difficult path between the peril of the sea-fog And the foam on the shore granite. One by one, trailing their leader, six crept by me, Out of the vapor and into it, The throb of their engines subdued by the fog, patient and cautious, Coasting all round the peninsula Back to the buoys in Monterey harbor. A flight of pelicans Is nothing lovelier to look at; The flight of the planets is nothing nobler; all the arts lose virtue Against the essential reality Of creatures going about their business among the equally Earnest elements of nature. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MEMORIAL VERSES by MATTHEW ARNOLD LYSISTRATA: HYMN OF PEACE; CHORUSES OF ATHENIANS AND SPARTANS by ARISTOPHANES PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 82. AL-RAWUF by EDWIN ARNOLD CRYING, 'THALASSUS!' by JOSEPH AUSLANDER AUTUMN by JESSIE ALBERT BARNEY PSALM 37. NOLI AEMULARI by OLD TESTAMENT BIBLE RECOGNITION by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN |