With aimless feet, along the verge
Of ocean, where the rocks emerge,
I strolled, and watched the baffled surge.

In sheltered channels at my feet,
The sleepy ripples crisping neat,
Slid in and out with sluicy beat.

The groaning sea, wind-smitten white —
The day, shot through with throbbing light,
Lay palpitating on my sight.

From bloody death of stricken day,
And ocean's leprous agony,
My weary eyes I drew away,

To where the rocks the margin mar
Of waters where the shadows are —
And saw the smiling of a star.

Imbedded deep in mossy green,
A glinting gem with lustrous sheen
Burnt wondrous with a flame serene.

My soul grew drunken with its ray —
Like liquid April filling May,
Its wing-light suffused the day.

And day became — with colors cold
New-drowned in beauties manifold —
An opal chalice brimming gold.

A silent music clove the air —
A spirit bent in worship there —
My wish had wrought itself a prayer.

" O, if thy beauty, radiant stone,
Be not rejected love alone,
By wooing stars upon thee thrown;

" But rather a desire intense
Appealing thus to human sense
With more than human eloquence;

" If so thou strivest to impart
The aspirations at thy heart —
Pulsing a wish with every spark;

" Give me to claim thy sacred ray;
I'll bear thee from thy shades away,
And set thee in the perfect day.

" I'll niche thee in a shrine made fair
With wondrous woods and metals rare,
And dim with amber-tinted air;

" And sculpted work of quaint device,
Gem-tinct with gleams of prismic ice,
And lamps antique of fabled price.

" And droning troops of monkish bees,
With censers filled at spicy trees,
Shall minister on bended knees. "

Grey darkness fell upon the land;
With hasty clutch my eager hand
To snatch the gem from barren strand

Essayed. When, Lo! with stiffened hair —
And vision smit with baleful glare —
And hope sharp-freezing to despair —

With heart compressed as in a vice,
And forehead bound with sudden ice —
I grasped a hidden Cockatrice:

O, with Heart of Stone, with eyes of light,
And ivory throat of pallid white,
And snaky folds concealed from sight;

With jeweled teeth, alas! and breath
Whose touch to passion ministreth —
Sweet-spiced with aromatic death!

No pen of poison, gall-immersed,
Of deadly sins can name thy worst;
Or fitly curse thy race accursed.

San Francisco, September 16th, 1867.