The Rock In The Sea

Archibald MacLeish 1892 (Glencoe) – 1982 (Boston)



Think of our blindness where the water burned!
Are we so certain that those wings, returned
And turning, we had half discerned
Before our dazzled eyes had surely seen
The bird aloft there, did not mean?—
Our hearts so seized upon the sign!

Think how we sailed up-wind, the brine
Tasting of daphne, the enormous wave
Thundering in the water cave—
Thunder in stone. And how we beached the skiff
And climbed the coral of that iron cliff
And found what only in our hearts we’d heard—
The silver screaming of that one, white bird:
The fabulous wings, the crimson beak
That opened, red as blood, to shriek
And clamor in that world of stone,
No voice to answer but its own.

What certainty, hidden in our hearts before,
Found in the bird its metaphor?

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Submitted on May 13, 2011

Modified on March 20, 2023

41 sec read
130

Quick analysis:

Scheme AAABBC CDDEEFFGGHH II
Closest metre Iambic pentameter
Characters 759
Words 138
Stanzas 3
Stanza Lengths 6, 11, 2

Archibald MacLeish

Archibald MacLeish was an American poet, writer, and the Librarian of Congress. more…

All Archibald MacLeish poems | Archibald MacLeish Books

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