Helen Hoyt

From “In a Certain City”

NEVER has ship sailed on that sea

Nor ray of tower shone on it;

Motionless, without desire or memory,

Like a great languorous sea of stone it lies.

And as these ledges of rock on which they sit—

So stony, so unseeing—are the eyes

Of this strange folk who from the naked shore

Look ever beyond them to the aged face

Of the waters. One with the hoar

Mighty boulders they seem, one with the deep:

These the first beings of the first rude race

Of time. Their hearts are still locked asleep,

So lately from the gray marble were they torn:

And all the multitudes of the world are yet unborn.