Classic Poem

O Outer Green Isle in the sea!
O uttermost isle in the sea!
To the west are the land
And the works of man's hand,
But all to the eastward of thee
Is the primal, untamable sea!

To the west, with his towers and his fanes,
Man has written a line that remains,
Drawn dark on the sky,
Proud earth to defy;
But eastward his fabrics and he,
How they fly in their fear of the sea!

And thou, on thy throne set between,
Of East and of West art the queen.
The Moon and the Sun,
As their circuit they run,
Upbuild all of gold o'er the sea
Their pathway from heaven to thee.

Yet never thou tirest, I weet,
Of the fond, shifting blue at thy feet,
Now faint, fairy pale,
Like a bride through her veil,
Now deeper than sky or the far
Keen mountains o'erhung by a star.

Not a rain-drop that sinks on thy breast
But hails thee its Isle of the Blest,
Where, 'scaping the grave
Of the blind, bitter wave,
It blends with thy glad, living green,
Its life become sheen of thy sheen.

Nor a surf-bow leaps up from the brine,
With its love-litten radiance trine,
But to clasp thee and crown,
And its being to drown
In the emerald splendor of thee,
O Outer Green Isle in the sea!