Tor House Analysis

If you should look for this place after a handful
        of lifetimes:
Perhaps of my planted forest a few
May stand yet, dark-leaved Australians or the coast
        cypress, haggard
With storm-drift; but fire and the axe are devils.
Look for foundations of sea-worn granite, my fingers
        had the art
To make stone love stone, you will find some remnant.
But if you should look in your idleness after ten
        thousand years:
It is the granite knoll on the granite
And lava tongue in the midst of the bay, by the mouth
        of the Carmel
River-valley, these four will remain
In the change of names. You will know it by the wild
        sea-fragrance of wind
Though the ocean may have climbed or retired a little;
You will know it by the valley inland that our sun
        and our moon were born from
Before the poles changed; and Orion in December
Evenings was strung in the throat of the valley like
        a lamp-lighted bridge.
Come in the morning you will see white gulls
Weaving a dance over blue water, the wane of the moon
Their dance-companion, a ghost walking
By daylight, but wider and whiter than any bird in
        the world.
My ghost you needn't look for; it is probably
Here, but a dark one, deep in the granite, not
        dancing on wind
With the mad wings and the day moon.


Submitted by Holt

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