Sylvia Plath — The Hermit at Outermost House

Sky and sea, horizon-hinged Tablets of blank blue, couldn’t, Clapped shut, flatten this man out. The great gods, Stone-Head, Claw-Foot, Winded by much rock-bumping And claw-threat, realized that. For what, then, had they endured Dourly the long hots and colds, Those old despots, if he sat Laugh-shaken on his doorsill, Backbone unbendable as Timbers of his upright hut. Hard gods were there, nothing else. Still he thumbed out something else. Thumbed no stony, horny pot, But a certain meaning green. He withstood them, that hermit. Rock face, crab-claw verged on green. Gulls mulled in the greenest light.