The Poetry Corner

Insularum Ocelle'

By Algernon Charles Swinburne

Sark, fairer than aught in the world that the lit skies cover, Laughs inly behind her cliffs, and the seafarers mark As a shrine where the sunlight serves, though the blown clouds hover, Sark. We mourn, for love of a song that outsang the lark, That nought so lovely beholden of Sirmio's lover Made glad in Propontis the flight of his Pontic bark. Here earth lies lordly, triumphal as heaven is above her, And splendid and strange as the sea that upbears as an ark, As a sign for the rapture of storm-spent eyes to discover, Sark.