On the cliff

I leaned on the turf,

I looked at a rock

Left dry by the surf;

For the turf, to call it grass were to mock:

Dead to the roots, so deep was done

The work of the summer sun.

And the rock lay flat

As an anvil's face:

No iron like that!

Baked dry; of a shell, of a weed no trace:

Sunshine outside, but ice at the core,

Death's altar by the lone shore.

On the turf, sprang gay

With his films of blue,

No cricket, I'll say,

But a warhorse, barded and chanfroned too,

The gift of a quixote-mage to his knight,

Real fairy, with wings all right.

On the rock, they scorch

Like a drop of fire

From a brandished torch,

Fall two red fans of a butterfly:

No turf, no rock: in their ugly stead,

See, wonderful blue and red!

Is it not so

With the minds of men?

The level and low,

The burnt and bare, in themselves; but then

With such a blue and red grace, not theirs,

Love settling unawares!