Like a dog that lay crouching there watching for me;
Growling and showing white teeth all the night,
Reaching his neck and as ready to bite--
Only the waves with their salt flood tears
Fawning white stones of a thousand years.

XVI.

Only the birds in the wilderness
Of column and dome and of glittering spire
That thrust to heaven and held the fire
Of the thunder still: The bird's distress
As he struck his wings in that wilderness,
On marbles that speak and thrill and inspire. . .
The night below and the night above;
The water-rat building, the startled white dove,
The wide-winged, dolorous sea bird's call
The water-rat building, but that was all.

XVII.

Lo! pushing the darkness from pillar to post,
The morning came silent and gray like a ghost
Slow up the canal. I leaned from the prow
And listened. Not even the bird in distress
Screaming above through the wilderness;
Not even the stealthy old water-rat now.
Only the bell in the fisherman's tower
Slow tolling a-sea and telling the hour
To kneel to their sweet Santa Barbara