By the ocean's edge, where waves meet the land
I hear Earth's pulse in the surf and sand
A rhythm as old as the planet's birth
The first heartbeat of our ancient Earth

The heartbeat of Earth, in waves slow and strong
Echoes through time, life's unending song
From primordial seas to consciousness vast
The pulse of existence, from first to last

Cambrian waters, life's fertile ground
Where arthropod hearts began to pound
Silent contractions, in exoskeletons strong
Guided by tides, both gentle and long

Through scales and fins, the beat grew clear
In vertebrate chests, drawing life near
From sea to land, each evolutionary stride
Carried the rhythm of the primal tide

From single cell to complex mind
All life connected, all intertwined
The pulse that started so long ago
Still drives us on, in ebb and flow

Now human hearts, with their lub and dub
Echo the ocean, from shore to sub
The beat goes on, through calm and strife
Waves and heartbeats, the dance of life

Last night a sword-light in the sky
Flashed a swift terror on the dark.
In that sharp light the fields did lie
Naked and stone-like; each tree stood
Like a tranced woman, bound and stark.
Far off the wood
With darkness ridged the riven dark.

And cows astonied stared with fear,
And sheep crept to the knees of cows,
And conies to their burrows slid,
And rooks were still in rigid boughs,
And all things else were still or hid.
From all the wood
Came but the owl's hoot, ghostly, clear.

In that cold trance the earth was held
It seemed an age, or time was nought.
Sure never from that stone-like field
Sprang golden corn, nor from those chill
Grey granite trees was music wrought.
In all the wood
Even the tall poplar hung stone still.

It seemed an age, or time was none…
Slowly the earth heaved out of sleep
And shivered, and the trees of stone
Bent and sighed in the gusty wind,
And rain swept as birds flocking sweep.
Far off the wood
Rolled the slow thunders on the wind.

From all the wood came no brave bird,
No song broke through the close-fall'n night,
Nor any sound from cowering herd:
Only a dog's long lonely howl
When from the window poured pale light.
And from the wood
The hoot came ghostly of the owl.