The Pebbled Beach

Bent like a sickle lies the sheltered shore,

         With its huge wall of polished pebbles, built

         Against the charging billows’ fiercest tilt.

Through patient centuries, trampling on they wore

The sharp rock-shards to symmetry, before

         These shining jewels could adorn the hilt

         Of old Norse Odin’s scimitar that split

The very floods that round the ridges pour!

But ocean chafes against the bounds he made;

         Far up the wall his frantic waters climb

         Clutching with thousand hands, in wrath sublime,

The myriad courses that his fingers laid.

         And ever he drags them down and hurls them back

In fruitless toil, like some gigantic maniac!