A REGION desolate and wild, Black, chafing water: and afloat, And lonely as a truant child In a waste wood, a single boat: No mast, no sails are set thereon; It moves, but never moveth on: And welters like a human thing Amid the wild waves weltering. Behind, a buried vale doth sleep, Far down the torrent cleaves its way: In front the dumb rock rises steep, A fretted wall of blue and grey; Of shooting cliff and crumbled stone With many a wild weed overgrown: All else, black water: and afloat, One rood from shore, that single boat. Last night the wind was up and strong; The grey-streak'd waters labour still: The strong blast brought a pigmy throng From that mild hollow in the hill; From those twin brooks, that beached strand So featly strewn with drifted sand; From those weird domes of mounded green That spot the solitary scene. This boat they found against the shore: The glossy rushes nodded by. One rood from land they push'd, no more; Then rested, listening silently. The loud rains lash'd the mountain's crown, The grating shingle straggled down: All night they sate; then stole away, And left it rocking in the bay. Last night?--I look'd, the sky was clear. The boat was old, a batter'd boat. In sooth, it seems a hundred year Since that strange crew did ride afloat. The boat hath drifted in the bay-- The oars have moulder'd as they lay-- The rudder swings--yet none doth steer. What living hand hath brought it here? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...BRUTUS AND ANTONY by EDGAR LEE MASTERS THE WISE WOMAN by LOUIS UNTERMEYER A MOTHER TO HER WAKING INFANT by JOANNA BAILLIE ON THE BRINK by CHARLES STUART CALVERLEY EASTER by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES THE INQUEST by WILLIAM HENRY DAVIES |