Ocean

It dreams in the deepest sleep, it remembers the storm
       last month or it feels the far storm
Off Unalaska and the lash of the sea-rain.
It is never mournful but wise, and takes the magical
       misrule of the steep world
With strong tolerance, its depth is not moved
From where the green sun fails to where the thin red clay
       lies on the basalt
And there has never been light nor life.
The black crystal, the untroubled fountain, the roots of
       endurance.

                      Therefore I belted
The house and the tower and courtyard with stone,
And have planted the naked foreland with future forest
       toward noon and morning: for it told me,
The time I was gazing in the black crystal,
To be faithful in storm, patient of fools, tolerant of
       memories and the muttering prophets,
It is needful to have night in one’s body.