Song-Surf Part 2

Bound in thy briny bed and gnawing earth With foamy writhing and fierce-panted tides, Thou art as Fate in torment of a dearth Of black disaster and destruction's strides.

And how thou dost drive silence from the world, Incarnate Motion of all mystery!

Whose waves are fury-wings, whose winds are hurled Whither thy Ghost tempestuous can see A desolate apocalypse of death.

Oh, how thou dost drive silence from the world, With emerald overflowing, waste on waste Of flas.h.i.+ng susurration, dashed and swirled O'er isles and continents that shrink abased!

Nay, frustrate Hope art thou, of the Unknown, Gathered from primal mist and firmament; A surging shape of Life's unfathomed moan, Whelming humanity with fears unmeant.

Yet do I love thee, O, above all fear, And loving thee unconquerably trust The runes that from thy ageless surfing start Would read, were they revealed, gust upon gust, That Immortality is might of heart!

THE DAY-MOON

So wan, so unavailing, Across the vacant day-blue dimly trailing!

Last night, sphered in thy s.h.i.+ning, A Circe--mystic destinies divining;

To-day but as a feather Torn from a seraph's wing in sinful weather,

Down-drifting from the portals Of Paradise, unto the land of mortals.

Yet do I feel thee awing My heart with mystery, as thy updrawing

Moves thro' the tides of Ocean And leaves lorn beaches barren of its motion;

Or strands upon near shallows The wreck whose weirded form at night unhallows

The fisher maiden's prayers-- "For _him_!--that storms may take not unawares!"

So wan, so unavailing, Across the vacant day-blue dimly trailing!

But Night shall come atoning Thy phantom life thro' day, and high enthroning

Thee in her chambers arrased With star-hieroglyphs, leave thee unhara.s.sed

To glide with silvery pa.s.sion, Till in earth's shadow swept thy glowings ashen.

A SEA-GHOST

Oh, fisher-fleet, go in from the sea And furl your wings.

The bay is gray with the twilit spray And the loud surf springs.

The chill buoy-bell is rung by the hands Of all the drowned, Who know the woe of the wind and tow Of the tides around.

Go in, go in! Oh, haste from the sea, And let them rest-- A son and one who was wed and one Who went down unblest.

Aye, even as I, whose hands at the bell Now labour most.

The tomb has gloom, but Oh, the doom Of the drear sea-ghost!

He evermore must wander the ooze Beneath the wave, Forlorn--to warn of the tempest born, And to save--to save!

Then go, go in! and leave us the sea, For only so Can peace release us and give us ease Of our salty woe.

ON THE MOOR

1

I met a child upon the moor A-wading down the heather; She put her hand into my own, We crossed the fields together.

I led her to her father's door-- A cottage mid the clover.

I left her--and the world grew poor To me, a childless rover.

2

I met a maid upon the moor, The morrow was her wedding.

Love lit her eyes with lovelier hues Than the eve-star was shedding.

She looked a sweet good-bye to me, And o'er the stile went singing.

Down all the lonely night I heard But bridal bells a-ringing.

3

I met a mother on the moor, By a new grave a-praying.

The happy swallows in the blue Upon the winds were playing.

"Would I were in his grave," I said, "And he beside her standing!"

There was no heart to break if death For me had made demanding.

THE CRY OF EVE

Down the palm-way from Eden in the mid-night Lay dreaming Eve by her outdriven mate, Pillowed on lilies that still told the sweet Of birth within the Garden's ecstasy.

Pitiful round her face that could not lose Its memory of G.o.d's perfecting was strewn Her troubled hair, and sigh grieved after sigh Along her loveliness in the white moon.

Then sudden her dream, too cruelly impent With pain, broke and a cry fled shuddering Into the wounded stillness from her lips-- As, cold, she fearfully felt for his hand, And tears, that had before ne'er visited Her lids with anguish, drew from her the moan: