The complete poetical works and letters of John Keats/To Ailsa Rock
II
To Ailsa Rock
The tourists crossed to Ireland for a short trip, and after returning to Scotland, made their way into Ayrshire, entering it a little beyond Cairn. Their walk led them into a long wooded glen. 'At the end,' writes Keats, July 10, 1818, 'we had a gradual ascent and got among the tops of the mountains whence in a little time I descried in the Sea Ailsa Rock, 940 feet high—it was 15 Miles distant and seemed close upon us. The effect of Ailsa with the peculiar perspective of the Sea in connection with the ground we stood on, and the misty rain then falling gave me a complete Idea of a deluge. Ailsa struck me very suddenly—really I was a little alarmed.'
Hearken, thou craggy ocean pyramid!
Give answer from thy voice, the sea-fowls' screams!
When were thy shoulders mantled in huge streams?
When, from the sun, was thy broad forehead hid?
How long is 't since the mighty power bid
Thee heave to airy sleep from fathom dreams?
Sleep in the lap of thunder or sunbeams,
Or when gray clouds are thy cold coverlid.
Thou answer'st not; for thou art dead asleep;
Thy life is but two dead eternities—
The last in air, the former in the deep;
First with the whales, last with the eagle-skies—
Drown'd wast thou till an earthquake made thee steep,
Another cannot wake thy giant size.