Sea Poems Part 3

A SONG OF THE OLD VENETIANS

The seven fleets of Venice Set sail across the sea For Cyprus and for Trebizond Ayoub and Araby.

Their gonfalons are floating far, St. Mark's has heard the ma.s.s, And to the noon the salt lagoon Lies white, like burning gla.s.s.

The seven fleets of Venice-- And each its way to go, Led by a Falier or Tron, Zorzi or Dandalo.

The Patriarch has blessed them all, The Doge has waved the word, And in their wings the murmurings Of waiting winds are heard.

The seven fleets of Venice-- And what shall be their fate?

One shall return with porphyry And pearl and fair agate.

One shall return with spice and spoil And silk of Samarcand.

But nevermore shall _one_ win o'er The sea, to any land.

_Oh, they shall bring the East back, And they shall bring the West, The seven fleets our Venice sets A-sail upon her quest.

But some shall bring despair back And some shall leave their keels Deeper than wind or wave frets, Or sun ever steals._

BASKING

Give me a spot in the sun, With a lizard basking by me, In Sicily, over the sea, Where Winter is sweet as Spring, Where Etna lifts his plume Of curling smoke to try me, But all in vain for I will not climb His height so ravis.h.i.+ng.

Give me a spot in the sun, So high on a cliff that, under, Far down, the flecking sails Like white moths flit the blue; That over me on a crag There hangs, O aery wonder, A white town drowsing in its nest That cypress-tops peep thro.

Give me a spot in the sun, With contadini singing, And a goat-boy at his pipes And donkey bells heard round Upon steep mountain paths Where a peasant cart comes swinging Mid joyous hot invectives--that So blameless here abound.

Give me a spot in the sun, In a land whose speech is flowers, Whose breath is Hybla-sweet, Whose soul is still a faun's, Whose limbs the sea enlaps, Thro long delicious hours, With liquid tenderness and light Sweet as Elysian dawns.

Give me a spot in the sun With a view past vale and villa, Past grottoed isle and sea To Italy and the Cape Around whose turning lies Old heathen-hearted Scylla, Whom may an ancient sailor prayed The G.o.ds he might escape.

Give me a spot in the sun: With sly old Pan as lazy As I, ever to tempt me To disbelief and doubt Of all G.o.ds else, from Jove To Bacchus born wine-crazy.

Give me, I say, a spot in the sun, And Realms I'll do without!

SAPPHO'S DEATH SONG

(_On her sea-cliff in Leucady_)

What have I gathered the years did not take from me?

(Swallows, hear, as you fly from the cold!) Whom have I bound to me never to break from me?

(Whom, O wind of the wold?) Whom, O wind! O hunter of spirits!

(Pierce his spirit whose spear is in mine!) Then let Oblivion loose this ache from me, Proserpine!

Lyre and the laurel the Muses gave to me, (Why comes summer when winter is nigh!) Spent am I now and pain-voices rave to me.

(O sea and its cry!) O the sea that has suffered all sorrow!

(Sea of the Delphian tongue ever shrill!) Nought from the wreck of love can now save to me Any thrill!

Life that we live pa.s.ses pale or amorous.

(Tread, O vintagers, grapes in the press!) Mine's but a prey to Erinnyes clamorous.

(O for wine that will bless!) Wine that foams, but is free of all madness (Free, O Cypris, of fury's breath!) Free as I now shall be, O glamorous Queen of Death!

THE WIND'S WORD

A star that I love, The sea, and I, Spake together across the night.

"Have peace," said the star, "Have power," said the sea; "Yea!" I answered, "and Fame's delight!"

The wind on his way To Araby Paused and listened and sighed and said, "I pa.s.sed on the sands A Pharaoh's tomb: All these did he have--and he is dead."

SUBMARINE MOUNTAINS

Under the sea, which is their sky, they rise To watery alt.i.tudes as vast as those Of far Himalayan peaks impent in snows And veils of cloud and sacred deep repose.

Under the sea, their flowing firmament, More dark than any ray of sun can pierce, The earthquake thrust them up with mighty tierce And left them to be seen but by the eyes Of awed imagination inward bent.

Their vegetation is the viscid ooze, Whose mysteries are past belief or thought.

Creation seems around them devil-wrought, Or by some cosmic urgence gone distraught.

Adown their precipices chill and dense With the dank midnight creep or crawl or climb Such tentacled and eyeless things of slime, Such monster shapes as tempt us to accuse Life of a miscreative impotence.

About their peaks the shark, their eagle, floats, In the thick azure far beneath the air, Or downward sweeps upon what prey may dare Set forth from any silent weedy lair.

But one desire on all their slopes is found, Desire of food, the awful hunger strife, Yet here, it may be, was begun our life Here all the dreams on which our vision dotes In unevolved obscurity were bound.

Too strange it is, too terrible! And yet It matters not how we were wrought or whence Life came to us with all its throb intense If in it is a G.o.dly Immanence.

It matters not,--if haply we are more Than creatures half-conceived by a blind force That sweeps the universe in a chance course: For only in Unmeaning Might is met The intolerable thought none can ignore.

THE SONG OF THE STORM-SPIRITS

Come over the tide, Come over the foam, Dance on the hurricane, leap its waves, Dream not of the calm sea-caves Nor of content in them and home.

For that is the reason the hearts of men Are ever weary--they would abide Somewhere out of the spumy stride Of the world's spindrift--a want denied.

That is the reason: tho they know That the restive years have no true home, But only a Whence, Whither, and When-- Whence and Whither, for hearts to roam.

So who would tarry and rest the while, Not dance as we, and sing on the wind, Against the whole flow of the world has sinned, And soon is weary and cannot smile.

Dance then, dance, on the fleeting spray!

None can gather eternity Into his heart and bid it stay, Swiftly again it slips away.

Dance, and know that the will of Life Is the wind's will and the will of the tide, And who finds not a home in its strife Shall find no home on any side!