The Fable
By Yvor Winters
Beyond the steady rock the steady sea,
In movement more immovable than station,
Gathers and washes and is gone. It comes,
A slow obscure metonymy of motion,
Crumbling the inner barriers of the brain.
But the crossed rock braces the hills and makes
A steady quiet of the steady music,
Massive with peace.
And listen, now:
The foam receding down the sand silvers
Between the grains, thin, pure as virgin words,
Lending a sheen to Nothing, whispering.
Copyright Credit: Yvor Winters, “The Fable” from The Collected Poems of Yvor Winters. Used by permission of Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio.
Source: The Collected Poems of Yvor Winters (1960)