Classic Poem

Earth with my little pathway ends
Abruptly, and I stand
Where in a wall of snow extends
The breakage of the land.

White birds, like fragments of the cliff,
Fly on the empty air,
Crying as though from hearts made stiff
With straitening despair.

And far beneath me on the beach
Sings the incessant sea,
And sighs like love that cannot reach
To Love's eternity.

Lord, in the weakness of my words
Let all these pray for me,
The broken cliff, the crying birds
And the foam-mottled sea.