I
Cliff-high, sunlit, in the tawny warmth of youth,
He gazed down at the breakneck rocks below,
Entranced by the water’s loose attacks of jade,
The sousing waves, the interminable, blind
Fury of scattered opals, flung tiaras,
Full, hoisted, momentary chandeliers.
He spent most of the morning there alone.
He smoked, recalled some lines of poetry,
Felt himself claimed by such rash opulence:
These were the lofty figures of his soul.
What was it moved him in all that swash and polish?
Against an imperial sky of lupine blue,
Suspended, as it seemed to him, forever,
Blazed a sun-flooded gem of the first water.

        II
Blazed, as it seemed, forever. Was this the secret
Gaudery of self-love, or a blood-bidden
Involuntary homage to the world?
As it happens, he was doomed never to know.
At times in darkened rooms he though he heard
The soft ruckus of patiently torn paper,
The sea’s own noise, the elderly slop and suck
Of hopeless glottals. Once, in a bad dream,
He saw himself stranded on the wet flats,
As limp as kelp, among putrescent crabs.
But to the very finish he remembered
The flash and force, the crests, the heraldry,
Those casual epergnes towering up
Like Easter trinkets of the tsarevitch.