A Houyhnhnm's Scrapbook/Number 1/The Starfish

When I rocked lonely by the sea
I neither dived, nor turned ashore.
I kept the quaint diversity
To move both ways, and both were far:
Seaward the easy fishes swam
But I lacked motion, fin, or gill
And sheer before me rose cliffstone
Walled to crack my cradle-shell.

There some wild and lovely thing
Dipped under heaven. Was it song
That lifted it and gave it wing?
I had never note, nor name
And was no flying miracle
To leap my shell and scale the sky,
My being hung divided still
Whether to drown itself or be.

Then I felt the weight of stars
That were as shadows on the mind,
Pull me, lure me unawares
Up on the rock of humankind.
All was lonely as daybreak
And nothing sang and nothing stirred
As the will of water broke
Baptizing, I rose boned and furred.

But loneliest beneath the light
That drove me blinded into birth
Armed with neither dream, nor fate,
Nor any artifact of earth
Until I saw a rough star-shape
Cast out by wave, or heaven’s scorn
Break through the circle of my sleep.
I touched the moment I was born.