Far out at sea beneath rich Tyrian sails The merchants watch a ghostly mountain spread Terrific dawn-wings fired with cloudy red, And cease their barter over purple bales; Wild headland flames to headland; in the dales Hushed warriors wait, for no torqued chief may tread That dim white forest where the vanished dead Gather like birds before the spume-drenched gales. Around the mount barbaric trumpets cry; Then Ictis thunders through her altar-stone, Long cloven by a god's mysterious rune; And pinnacled between the earth and sky Her savage prophet stands, majestic, lone, Helmed with the sun and girdled with the moon. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SEAWEED by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW UPON HIS PICTURE by THOMAS RANDOLPH A BED OF FORGET-ME-NOTS by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI A FRAGMENT OF AN EPIC POEM, OCCASIONED BY THE LOSS OF A GAME by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD THE HOUREGLASSE by JOSEPH BEAUMONT TO A DEAD JOURNALIST by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT |