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diff --git a/31877.txt b/31877.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5d3083e --- /dev/null +++ b/31877.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4018 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Sea Poems, by Cale Young Rice + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Sea Poems + +Author: Cale Young Rice + +Release Date: April 4, 2010 [EBook #31877] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEA POEMS *** + + + + +Produced by David Garcia, Josephine Paolucci and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Kentuckiana Digital Library.) + + + + + + + +SEA POEMS + +BY + +CALE YOUNG RICE + +AUTHOR OF + +"WRAITHS AND REALITIES," "TRAILS SUNWARD," "COLLECTED POEMS," ETC. + +NEW YORK +THE CENTURY CO. +1921 + + +Copyright, 1921, by +The Century Co. + + +TO +HARRISON S. MORRIS +A HATER OF SHAM AND PRETENSE, +A LOVER OF BEAUTY AND TRUTH, +A FIRM FRIEND. + + + + +FOREWORD + + +The poems of this volume, gathered here after many requests, are, with a +few exceptions, from my previous lyrical publications. They are also in +a real sense an intimate record. For the sea has often enough seemed to +me almost as a vast external subconsciousness in which the forces of my +being--as well as the world's--were at play. + +Cale Young Rice. + +Louisville, Ky., August, 1921. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + +Sea-Hoardings 3 + +The Shore's Song to the Sea 5 + +To a Firefly by the Sea 9 + +Invocation 11 + +I Know Your Heart, O Sea! 11 + +A Sea-Ghost 13 + +Finitude 15 + +The Colonel's Story 16 + +Cosmism 21 + +Off the Irish Coast 22 + +The Fairies of God 23 + +The Song of the Homesick Gael 24 + +Pageants of the Sea 26 + +A Song of the Old Venetians 29 + +Basking 30 + +Sappho's Death Song 32 + +The Wind's Word 33 + +Submarine Mountains 34 + +The Song of the Storm-Spirits 36 + +The Great Seducer 37 + +K'u-Kiang 38 + +Typhoon 39 + +Penang 41 + +Nights on the Indian Ocean 42 + +Sighting Arabia 44 + +"All's Well" 45 + +Somnambulism 47 + +Chartings 48 + +The Trail from the Sea 50 + +Haunted Seas 54 + +Sea Lure 54 + +Songs to A. H. R. + + I Minglings 56 + II Love and Infinity 56 + III Recompense 57 + IV At the Ebb-Hour 58 + V In a Dark Hour 59 + VI Via Amorosa 59 + VII Transfusion 61 + +Need of Storm 62 + +A Florida Interlude 63 + +A Florida Boating Song 65 + +Dawn Bliss 66 + +Atavism 68 + +Re-reckoning 69 + +To the Afternoon Moon, At Sea 70 + +Paths 71 + +From a Northern Beach 73 + +Passage 74 + +Aleen 75 + +To a Solitary Sea-Gull 76 + +Ineffable Things 77 + +The Song of a Sea-Farer 78 + +Waves 79 + +In a Storm 80 + +After Their Parting 80 + +A Word's Magic 82 + +Sea Rhapsody 83 + +In an Oriental Harbour 84 + +Under the Sky 85 + +A Song for Healing 86 + +A Singhalese Love Lament 87 + +The City 89 + +Full Tide 89 + +The Herding 91 + +On the Maine Coast 92 + +Seance 93 + +A Sidmouth Lad 93 + +Widowed 94 + +To the Sea 95 + +Sea-Mad 97 + +The Atheist 98 + +At the Helm 99 + +Imperturbable 100 + +Waste 100 + +Resurgence 101 + +Life's Answer 103 + +As the Tide Comes In 103 + +Sense-Sweetness 104 + +Tidals 105 + +A Sailor's Wife 105 + +To Sea! 106 + +Give Over, O Sea! 107 + +The Nun 109 + +Last Sight of Land 110 + + + + +SEA POEMS + +BY CALE YOUNG RICE + + + + +SEA-HOARDINGS + + + My heart is open again and sea flows in, + It shall fill with a summer of mists and winds and clouds and waves breaking, + Of gull-wings over the green tide, of the surf's drenching din, + Of sudden horizon-sails that come and vanish, phantom-thin, + Of arching sapphire skies, deep and unaching. + + I shall lie on the rocks just over the weeds that drape + The clear sea-pools, where birth and death in sunny ooze are teeming. + Where the crab in quest of booty sidles about, a sullen shape, + Where the snail creeps and the mussel sleeps with wary valves agape, + Where life is too grotesque to be but seeming. + + And the swallow shall weave my dreams with threads of flight, + A shuttle with silver breast across the warp of the waves gliding; + And an isle far out shall be a beam in the loom of my delight, + And the pattern of every dream shall be a rapture bathed in light-- + Its evanescence a beauty most abiding. + + And the sunsets shall give sadness all its due, + They shall stain the sands and trouble the tides with all the ache of sorrow. + They shall bleed and die with a beauty of meaning old yet ever new, + They shall burn with all the hunger for things that hearts have failed to do, + They shall whisper of a gold that none can borrow. + + And the stars shall come and build a bridge of fire + For the moon to cross the boundless sea, with never a fear of sinking. + They shall teach me of the magic things of life never to tire, + And how to renew, when it is low, the lamp of my desire-- + And how to hope, in the darkest deeps of thinking. + + + + +THE SHORE'S SONG TO THE SEA + + + Out on the rocks primeval, + The grey Maine rocks that slant and break to the sea, + With the bay and juniper round them, + And the leagues on leagues before them, + And the terns and gulls wheeling and crying, wheeling and crying over, + I sat heart-still and listened. + + And first I could only hear the wind in my ears, + And the foam trying to fill the high rock-shallows. + And then, over the wind, over the whitely blossoming foam, + Low, low, like a lover's song beginning, + I heard the nuptial pleading of the old shore, + A pleading ever occultly growing louder:-- + + _O sea, glad bride of me! + Born of the bright ether and given to wed me, + Given to glance, ever, for me, and gleam and dance in the sun-- + Come to my arms, come to my reaching arms, + That seem so still and unavailing to take you, and hold you, + Yet never forget, + Never by day or night, + The hymeneal delights of your embracings._ + + _Come, for the moon, my rival, shall not have you; + No, for tho twice daily afar he beckons and you go, + You, my bride, a little way back to meet him, + As if he once had been your lover, he too, and again enspelled you, + Soon, soon, I know it is only feigning! + For turning, playfully turning, tidally turning, + You rush foamingly, swiftly back to my arms!_ + + _And so would I have you rush; so rush now! + Come from the sands where you have stayed too long, + Come from the reefs where you have wandered silent, + For ebbings are good, the restful ebbings of love, + But, oh, the bridal flowings of it are better! + And now I would have you loose again my tresses, + My locks rough and weedy, rough and brown and brinily tangled, + But, oh, again as a bridegroom's, when your tide, whispering in, + Lifts them up, pulsingly up with kisses!_ + + _Come with your veil thrown back, breaking to spray! + And oh, with plangent passion! + Come with your naked sweetness, salt and wholesome, to my bosom; + Let not a cave or crevice of me miss you, or cranny, + For, oh, the nuptial joy you float into me, + The cooling ambient clasp of you, I have waited over-long, + And I need to know again its marriage meaning!_ + + _For I think it is not alone to bring forth life, that I mate you; + More than life is the beauty of life with love! + Plentiful are the children that you bear to me, the blossoms, + The fruits and all the creatures at your breast dewily fed, + But mating is troubled with a far higher meaning-- + A hint of a consummation for all things. + Come utterly then, + Utterly to me come, + And let us surge together, clasped close, in infinite union, + Until we reach a transcendence of all birth, and all dying, + An ecstasy holding the universe blended-- + Such ecstasy as is its ultimate Aim!_ + + So sang the shore, the long bay-scented shore, + Broken by many an isle, many an inlet bird-embosomed, + And the sea gave answer, bridally, tidally turning, + And leapt, radiant, into his rocky arms! + + + + +TO A FIREFLY BY THE SEA + + + Little torch-bearer, alone with me in the night, + You cannot light the sea, nor I illumine life. + They are too vast for us, they are too deep for us. + We glow with all our strength, but back the shadows sweep: + And after a while will come--unshadowed Sleep. + + Here on the rocks that take the turning tide; + Here by the wide lone waves and lonelier wastes of sky, + We keep our poet-watch, as patient poets should, + Questioning earth's commingled ill and good to us. + Yet little of them, or naught, have truly understood. + + Bright are the stars, and constellated thick. + To you, so quick to flit along your flickering course, + They seem perhaps as glowing mates in other fields. + And all the knowledge I have gathered yields to me + Scarce more of the great mystery their wonder wields. + + For the moon we are waiting--and behold + Her ardent gold drifts up, her sail has caught the breeze + That blows all being thro the Universe always. + So now, little light-keeper, you no more need nurse + Your gleam, for lo! she mounts, and sullen clouds disperse. + + And I with aching thought may cease to burn, + And humbly turn to rest--knowing no glow of mine + Can ever be so beauteous as have been to me + Your soft beams here beside the sea's elusive din: + For grief too oft has kindled me, and pain, and the world's sin. + + + + +INVOCATION + +(_From a High Cliff_) + + + Sweep unrest + Out of my blood, + Winds of the sea! Sweep the fog + Out of my brain + For I am one + Who has told Life he will be free. + Who will not doubt of work that's done, + Who will not fear the work to do, + Who will hold peaks Promethean + Better than all Jove's honey-dew. + Who when the Vulture tears his breast + Will smile into the Terror's Eyes. + Who for the World has this Bequest-- + Hope, that eternally is wise. + + + + +I KNOW YOUR HEART, O SEA! + + + I know your heart, O Sea! + You are tossed with cold desire to flood earth utterly; + You run at the cliffs, you fling wild billows at beaches, + You reach at islands with fingers of foam to crumble them; + Yes, even at mountain tops you shout your purpose + Of making the earth a shoreless circle of waters! + + I know your surging heart! + Tides mighty and all-contemptuous rise within it, + Tides spurred by the wind to champ and charge and thunder-- + Tho the sun and moon rein them-- + At the troubling land, the breeding-place of mortals, + Of men who are ever transmuting life to spirit, + And ever taking your salt to savor their tears. + + I know your tides, I know them! + "Down," they rage, "with the questing of men, and crying! + With their continents--cradles of grief and despair! + Better entombing waters for them, better our deeps unfathomed, + Where birth is soulless, life goalless, death toll-less for all, + And where dark ooze enshrouds past resurrection!" + + Ah, yes, I know your heart! + I have heard it raving at coast-lights set to reveal you, + I have watched it foam at ships that sought to defy you, + I have seen it straining at cables that cross you, bearing whispers hid to you, + Or heaving at waves of the air that tell your hurricanes. + + I know, I know your heart! + Men you will sink, and shores will sink; but a shore shall be man's forever, + From whence his lighthouse soul shall signal the Infinite, + Whose fleets go by, star after star, bearing their unknown burden + To a Port which only eternity shall determine! + + + + +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-- + The throng who long for the air--still long, + But are still 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. + + + + +FINITUDE + + +I + + One ruby, amid a diamond spray of stars, + The coast light flashes; + The tide plashes, + Across a mile of bay-sweet land the moon + Comes soon: + She has lost half of her lustre and looks old. + + A cricket, finitude's incarnate cry, + And the infinite waters with their hushless sigh + Are the two sounds + The night has: + Each in eternal wistfulness abounds. + + +II + + I have wakened out of my sleep because I too + Am wistful, + Tristeful; + Because I know that half of _me_ is gone, + And that all frailty cries in the cricket's tone. + + I have wakened out of my sleep to watch and listen. + For what? + To see for a moment universes glisten; + To wonder and want--and go to sleep again, + And die, + And be forgot. + + + + +THE COLONEL'S STORY + + + No, no, my friend; there is an agony + Not to be exorcised out of the world + By any voice of hope.--But, I will tell you. + + The _Sonia_ was sailing without lights-- + Bearing three hundred souls--and without bells; + For she had reached the "Zone," where the Hun sharks + With their torpedo tongues could spit death at us + Out of the inky sea-hells where they hid. + On the main deck we stood, in a wind-shelter,-- + My wife, and by us a pale girl whose eyes + Had all disaster in them. And my thought was, + "I hope to God the moon is shut so deep + In cloud-murk there in the East that hurricanes + Can't blow her out of it." For in the Zone + The moon had come to mean only betrayal, + And now, if ever, was her wanton chance. + + The slipping water soaked with soulless dark + Fell under and around us shudderingly, + Yet somehow brought an anxious hopefulness. + "We're making twenty knots," I said; and felt + Our bow cut thro the tangle of the waves + As if the No Man's _Sea_ ahead of us + Would soon be crossed; and I, out to rejoin + My regiment, could set my wife safe somewhere, + And help again to stab that curst amphibian, + Autocracy--whose spawn in the sea gave it + A terror greater than infinitude's. + For God knows, with the woman that one loves + Aboard a ship, and only a cloud perhaps + Between the Hun's shark eyes and sure escape + From the black icy fathoms that would choke her, + There's little left within a man but nerves. + So when I drew her closer into the shelter, + Out of the sheering wind, the life belt + She wore seemed like a coffin in that sepulchre + Of night and sea. And when the other, there, + With the disaster eyes and pallid face, + Turned half toward us, I was shaken as if + The moon had suddenly walked out of her shroud + With phosphorescent purpose to reveal us. + + But on we plunged and tumbled, till at last + The blank monotonous sink and swell lulled me + To faith. And I was only thinking softly + Of her--my wife's--first kiss on a summer night + Under the moonlit laurels of our home, + When came a cry from the wan girl gazing + Frozenly on the sea--where the moon now + Indeed was pointing at us pallidly + A death-path. And my throat was gripped by it, + That clutching cry, as if the glacial depths + Down under us already had risen up. + So starting toward the slipping rail I called, + "What is it? where?" For, tense as a clairvoyant, + With eyes that seemed to feel under the tide + The stealthy peril stalking us, she stood there. + + After a moment's gazing, I too saw-- + What she foresensed--destruction seething toward us. + "The boats!" I cried, "the rafts!" And stumbled back + Over the streaming deck to her I loved. + Then the shock came, as if the sea's wild heart + Had broken under us, and ripped the entrails, + The human hundreds, out of our vessel's hold, + To strew the foam with mania and despair, + With shrieks strangled by wind and wave and terror. + And thro that floating, mangled, blind confusion, + Where hands reached at the infinite then sank, + Where faces clung to wreckage as to eternity, + I sought for her who shared my life's voyage, + Who had been my heart's pilot; and who now, + Wrecked with me, swirled, too, in the torn waters.... + And soon I saw her, still by that wan girl, + Tossed on a watery omnipotence. + + Blind with brine I swam for her--as the moon, + Her treachery done, again got to a cloud. + Flung back by every wave, I fought; beating + Against them as against God. And soon, somehow, + Had reached to a limp body on the surge, + Limp and strange--but living ... and not drowned! + Then seeing a raft near, I struggled onward, + Gulping the sea and being gulped by it, + But finding arms at last that drew my burden + And me from horror to half-swooning safety. + + I could have died, I think, of the relief. + But the moon came again, nakedly out, + As if to see what she had done. Then I, + Bending over the form that I had fought for, + And chafing it, saw ... not her I loved! + Infinite Cruelty, not her I loved!... + But that pale girl, with the eyes of all disaster. + + Oh, yes, I raved, and said God was a Hun, + A Kaiser of a Universe that loathed him. + And back, too, would have leapt, into the waves, + But the same hands that saved were ready to hold me. + + + + +COSMISM + + + The sea asleep like a dreamer sighs; + The salt rock-pools lie still in the sun, + Except for the sidling crab that creeps + Thro the moveless mosses green and dun. + The small gray snail clings everywhere, + For the tide is out; and the sea-weed dries + Its tangled tresses in the warm air, + That seems to ooze from the far blue skies, + Where not a white gull on white wing flies. + + The mollusc gleams like a gem amid + The scurf and the clustered green sea-grapes, + Whose trellis is but the rock's bare side, + Whose husbandman but the tide that drapes. + The little sandpiper tilts and picks + His food, on the wet sea-marges hid, + Till sudden a wave comes in and flicks + Him off, then flashes away to bid + Another frighten him--as it did. + + O sweet is the world of living things, + And sweet are the mingled sea and shore! + It seems as if I never again + Shall find life ill--as oft before. + As if my days should come as the clouds + Come yonder--and vanish without wings; + As if all sorrow that ever shrouds + My soul and darkly about it clings + Had lost forever its ravenings. + + As if I knew with a deeper sense + That good alone is ultimate; + That never an evil wrought of God + Or man came truly out of hate. + That Better springs from the heart of Worse, + As calm from the heaving elements; + That all things born to the Universe + May suffer and perish utterly hence, + But never refute its Innocence. + + + + +OFF THE IRISH COAST + + + Gulls on the wind, + Crying! crying! + Are you the ghosts + Of Erin's dead? + Of the forlorn + Whose days went sighing + Ever for Beauty + That ever fled? + + Ever for Light + That never kindled? + Ever for Song + No lips have sung? + Ever for Joy + That ever dwindled? + Ever for Love that stung? + + + + +THE FAIRIES OF GOD + + + Last night I slipt from the banks of dream + And swam in the currents of God, + On a tide where His fairies were at play, + Catching salt tears in their little white hands, + For human hearts; + And dancing, dancing, in gala bands, + On the currents of God; + And singing, singing:-- + + _There is no wind blows here or spray-- + Wind upon us! + Only the waters ripple away + Under our feet as we gather tears. + God has made mortals for the years, + Us for alway! + God has made mortals full of fears, + Fears for the night and fears for the day. + If they would free them of grief that sears, + If they would keep what love endears, + If they would lay no more lilies on biers-- + Let them say! + For we are swift to enchant and tire + Time's will! + Our feet are wiser than all desire, + Our song is better than faith or fame; + To whom it is given no ill e'er came, + Who has it not grows chill! + Who has it not grows laggard and lame, + Nor knows that the world is a Minstrel's lyre, + Smitten and never still!..._ + + Last night on the currents of God. + + + + +THE SONG OF THE HOMESICK GAEL + +(_In the characteristic minor of a recent literary movement_) + + + I long to see the solan-goose + Wing over Ailsa crag + At dusk again--or Girvan gulls at dawn; + To see the osprey grayly glide + The winds of Kamasaig: + For grayness now my heart is set upon. + + The grayness of sea-spaces where + There's loneliness alone, + Save for the wings that sweep it with unrest, + Save for the hunger-cries that sound + And die into a moan, + Save for the moaning hunger in my breast. + + For grayness is the hue of all + In life that is not lies. + A thousand years of tears are in my heart; + And only in their mystery + Can I be truly wise: + From light and laughter follies only start. + + I long to see the mists again + Above the tumbling tide + Of Ailsa, at the coming of the night. + There's weariness and emptiness + And soul unsatisfied + Forever in the places of delight. + + + + +PAGEANTS OF THE SEA + + + What memories have I of it, + The sea, continent-clasping, + The sea whose spirit is a sorcery, + The sea whose magic foaming is immortal! + What memories have I of it thro the years! + + What memories of its shores!... + Of shadowy headlands doomed to stay the storm; + And red cliffs clawing ever into the tides; + Of misty moors whose royal heather purples; + Of channeled marshes, village-nesting hills; + Of crags wind-eaten, homes of hungry gulls; + Of bays-- + Where sails float furled, resting softly at harbour, + Until, winging again, they sweep away. + + What memories have I, too, + Of faring out at dawn upon tameless waters, + Upon the infinite wasted yearning of them, + While winds, the mystic harp-strings of the world, + Were sounding sweet farewells; + While coast and lighthouse tower were fading fast, + And from me all the world slipped like a garment. + + What memories of mid-deeps!... + Of heaving on thro haunted vasts of foam, + Thro swaying terrors of tormented tides; + While the wind, no more singing, took to raving, + In rhythmic infinite words, + A chantey ancient and immeasurable + Concerning man and God. + + What memories of fog-spaces-- + Wide leaden deserts of dim wavelessness, + Smooth porpoise-broken glass + As gray as a dream upon despair's horizon; + What sailing soft till lo the shroud was lifted + And suddenly there came, as a great joy, + The blue sublimity of summer skies, + The azure mystery of happy heavens, + The passionate sweet parley of the breeze, + And dancing waves--that lured us on and on + Past islands above whose verdant mountain-heads + Enchanted clouds were hanging, + And whence wild spices wandered; + Past iridescent reefs and vessels bound + For ports unknown: + O far, far past, until the sun, in fire, + An impotent and shrunken orb lay dying, + On heaving twilight purple gathered round. + + And then, what nights!... + The phantom moon in misty resurrection + Arising from her sepulchre in the East + And sparkling the dark waters-- + The unremembering moon! + And covenants of star to faithful star, + Dewy, like tears of God, across the sky; + And under the moon's fair ring Orion running + Forever in great war adown the West. + What far, infinite nights! + With cloud-horizons where the lightning slumbered + Or wakened once and again with startled watch, + Again to fall asleep + And leave the moon-path free for all my thoughts + To wander peacefully + Away and still away + Until the stars sighed out in dawn's great pallor, + Just as the lands of my desire appeared. + + What memories ... have I of it! + + + + +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 mass, + And to the noon the salt lagoon + Lies white, like burning glass. + + 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 ravishing. + + 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 gods 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 gods 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 passes 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 passed 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 altitudes 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 Godly 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! + + + + +THE GREAT SEDUCER + + + Who looks too long from his window + At the gray, wide, cold sea, + Where breakers scour the beaches + With fingers of sharp foam; + Who looks too long thro the gray pane + At the mad, wild, bold sea, + Shall sell his hearth to a stranger + And turn his back on home. + + Who looks too long from his window-- + Tho his wife waits by the fireside-- + At a ship's wings in the offing, + At a gull's wings on air, + Shall latch his gate behind him, + Tho his cattle call from the byre-side, + And kiss his wife--and leave her-- + And wander everywhere. + + Who looks too long in the twilight, + Or the dawn-light, or the noon-light, + Who sees an anchor lifted + And hungers past content, + Shall pack his chest for the world's end, + For alien sun--or moonlight, + And follow the wind, sateless, + To Disillusionment! + + + + +K'U-KIANG + + + Because the sun like a Chinese lantern + Set in a temple of clouds tonight, + I was back in K'u-Kiang! + + Because in a temple of dragon clouds, + As if with incense misty red, + It hung there over the rim of the sea, + I was back in a narrow street, + Where amber faces pass all day, + Going to pay, going to pray, + Going the same old human way + They have gone for a thousand years, men say, + In K'u-Kiang. + + And I heard the coolie cry for his fare, + I heard the merchant praise his ware + Of bronze and porcelain set to snare, + In K'u-Kiang! + I saw strange streaming signs in black + With gold and crimson on their back-- + Opiate signs in an opiate street; + Where the slip and patter of felt-shod feet + Is old as the sun; + And the temple door + As cool and dark as the night. + + And where dim lanterns, swinging there, + As a lure to human grief and care, + Half reveal and half conceal + The ancestral gloom of the gods. + + I saw all this with sudden pang, + As if by hashish swept or bhang, + Because the sun, like a Chinese lantern, + Set in a temple of clouds! + + + + +TYPHOON + +(_At Hong-kong_) + + + I was weary and slept on the Peak; + The air clung close like a shroud, + And ever the blue-fly at my ear + Buzzed haunting, hot and loud; + I awoke and the sky was dun + With awe and a dread that soon + Went shuddering thro my heart, for I knew + That it meant typhoon! typhoon! + + In the harbour below, far down, + The junks like fowl in a flock + Were tossing in wingless terror, or fled + Fluttering in from the shock. + The city, a breathless bend + Of roofs, by the water strewn, + Lay silent and waiting, yet there was none + Within it but said typhoon! + + Then it came, like a million winds + Gone mad immeasurably, + A torrid and tortuous tempest stung + By rape of the fair South Sea. + And it swept like a scud escaped + From crater of sun or moon, + And struck as no power of Heaven could, + Or of Hell--typhoon! typhoon! + + And the junks were smitten and torn, + The drowning struggled and cried, + Or, dashed on the granite walls of the sea, + In succourless hundreds died. + Till I shut the sight from my eyes + And prayed for my soul to swoon: + If ever I see God's face, let it + Be guiltless of that typhoon! + + + + +PENANG + + + I want to go back to Singapore + And ship along the Straits, + To a bungalow I know beside Penang; + Where cocoanut palms along the shore + Are waving, and the gates + Of Peace shut Sorrow out forevermore. + I want to go back and hear the surf + Come beating in at night, + Like the washing of eternity over the dead. + I want to see dawn fare up and day + Go down in golden light; + I want to go back to Penang! I want to go back! + + I want to go back to Singapore + And up along the Straits + To the bungalow that waits me by the tide. + Where the Tamil and Malay tell their lore + At evening--and the fates + Have set no soothless canker at life's core. + I want to go back and mend my heart + Beneath the tropic moon, + While the tamarind-tree is whispering thoughts of sleep. + I want to believe that Earth again + With Heaven is in tune. + I want to go back to Penang! I want to go back! + + I want to go back to Singapore + And ship along the Straits + To the bungalow I left upon the strand. + Where the foam of the world grows faint before + It enters, and abates + In meaning as I hear the palm-wind pour. + I want to go back and end my days + Some evening when the Cross + On the southern sky hangs heavily far and sad. + I want to remember when I die + That life elsewhere was loss. + I want to go back to Penang! I want to go back! + + + + +NIGHTS ON THE INDIAN OCEAN + + + Nights on the Indian Ocean, + Long nights of moon and foam, + When silvery Venus low in the sky + Follows the sun home. + Long nights when the mild monsoon + Is breaking south-by-west, + And when soft clouds and the singing shrouds + Make all that is seem best. + + Nights on the Indian Ocean, + Long nights of space and dream, + When silent Sirius round the Pole + Swings on, with steady gleam; + When oft the pushing prow + Seems pressing where before + No prow has ever pressed--or shall + From hence forevermore. + + Nights on the Indian Ocean, + Long nights--with land at last, + Dim land, dissolving the long sea-spell + Into a sudden past-- + That seems as far away + As this our life shall seem + When under the shadow of death's shore + We drop its ended dream. + + + + +SIGHTING ARABIA + + + My heart, that is Arabia, O see! + That talismanic sweep of sunset coast, + Which lies like richly wrought enchantment's ghost + Before us, bringing back youth's witchery! + + "Arabian Nights!" At last to us one comes, + The crescent moon upon its purple brow. + Will not Haroun and Bagdad rise up now + There on the shore, to beating of his drums? + + Is not that gull a roc? That sail Sindbad's? + That rocky pinnacle a minaret? + Does the wind call to prayer from it? O yet + I hear the fancy, fervid as a lad's! + + "Allah il Allah," rings it; O my heart, + Fall prostrate, for to Mecca we are near, + That flashing light is but a sign sent clear + From her, your houri, as her curtains part! + + Soon she will lean out from her lattice, soon, + And bid you climb up to your Paradise, + Which is her panting lips and passion eyes + Under the drunken sweetness of the moon! + + O heart, my heart, drink deeply ere they die, + The sunset dome, the minaret, the dreams + Flashing afar from youth's returnless streams: + For we, my heart, must grow old, you and I! + + + + +"ALL'S WELL" + + + I + + The illimitable leaping of the sea, + The mouthing of its madness to the moon, + The seething of its endless sorcery, + Its prophecy no power can attune, + Swept over me as, on the sounding prow + Of a great ship that steered into the stars, + I stood and felt the awe upon my brow + Of death and destiny and all that mars. + + + II + + The wind that blew from Cassiopeia cast + Wanly upon my ear a rune that rung; + The sailor in his eyrie on the mast + Sang an "All's well," that to the spirit clung + Like a lost voice from some aerial realm + Where ships sail on forever to no shore, + Where Time gives Immortality the helm, + And fades like a far phantom from life's door. + + + III + + "And is all well, O Thou Unweariable, + Who launchest worlds upon bewildered space," + Rose in me, "All? or did thy hand grow dull + Building this world that bears a piteous race? + O was it launched too soon or launched too late? + Or can it be a derelict that drifts + Beyond thy ken toward some reef of Fate + On which Oblivion's sand forever shifts?" + + + IV + + The sea grew softer as I questioned--calm + With mystery that like an answer moved, + And from infinity there fell a balm, + The old peace that God _is_, tho all unproved. + The old faith that tho gulfs sidereal stun + The soul, and knowledge drown within their deep, + There is no world that wanders, no not one + Of all the millions, that He does not keep. + + + + +SOMNAMBULISM + + + I + + Night is above me, + And Night is above the night. + The sea is beside me soughing, or is still. + The earth as a somnambulist moves on + In a strange sleep ... + A sea-bird cries. + And the cry wakes in me + Dim, dead sea-folk, my sires-- + Who more than myself are me. + Who sat on their beach long nights ago and saw + The sea in its silence; + And cursed it or implored; + Or with the Cross defied; + Then on the morrow in their boats went down. + + + II + + Night is above me ... + And Night is above the night. + Rocks are about me, and, beyond, the sand ... + And the low reluctant tide, + That rushes back to ebb a last farewell + To the flotsam borne so long upon its breast. + Rocks ... But the tide is out, + And the slime lies naked, like a thing ashamed + That has no hiding-place. + And the sea-bird hushes-- + The bird and all far cries within my blood-- + And earth as a somnambulist moves on. + + + + +CHARTINGS + + + There is no moon, only the sea and stars; + There is no land, only the vessel's bow + On which I stand alone and wonder how + Men ever dream of ports beyond the bars + Of Finitude that fix the Here and Now. + A meteor falls, and foam beneath me breaks; + Dim phosphor fires within it faintly die. + So soft the sea is that it seems a sky + On which eternity to life awakes. + + The universe is spread before my face, + Worlds where perchance a million seas like this + Are flowing and where tides of pain and bliss + Find, as on earth, so prevalent a place + That nothing of their wont we there should miss. + The Universe, that man has dared to say + Is but one Being--ah, courageous thought! + Which is so vast that hope itself is fraught + With shame, while saying it, and shrinks away. + + Shrinks, even as now! For clouds sweep up the skies + And darken the wide waters circling round, + From out whose deep arises the old sound + Of Terror unto which no tongue replies + But Faith--that nothing ever shall confound. + Not only pagan Perseus but the Cross + Is shrouded--with wild wind and wilder rain, + That on me beat until my soul again + Sings unsurrendering to fears of Loss. + + For this I know,--yea, tho all else lie hid + Uncharted on the waters of our fate, + All lands of Whence or Whither, whose estate + In vain imagination seeks to thrid, + Yet cannot, for the fog within Death's gate,-- + This thing I know, that life, whatever its Source + Or Destiny, comes with an upward urge, + And that we cannot thwart its mighty surge, + But with a joy in strife must keep the course. + + + + +THE TRAIL FROM THE SEA + + + I took the trail to the wooded canyon, + The trail from the sea: + For I heard a calling in me, + A landward calling irresistible in me:-- + + _Have done with things of the sea--things of the soul; + Have done with waters that slip away from under you. + Have done with things faithless, things unfathomable and vain; + With the vast deeps of Time and the Hereafter._ + + _Have done with the fog-breather, the fog-beguiler; + With the foam of the never-resting. + Have done with tides and passions, tides and mysteries for a season. + Have done with infinite yearnings cast adrift on infinite vagueness-- + With never a certain sail, never a rudder sure for guidance, + With never a compass-needle free of desire._ + + _For the ways of earth are good, as well as sea-ways, + The peaks of it as well as ports unknown. + Not only perils matter, stormy perils, over the pathless, + Not only the shoals that sink your ship of dreams. + Not only the phantom lure of far horizons, + Not only the windy guess at the goals of God._ + + _But morning matters, and dew upon the rose, + And noon, shadowless noon, and simple sheep on the pastures straying. + And toil matters, amid the accustomed corn, + And peace matters, the valley-spirit of peace, unprone to wander, + Unprone to pierce to the world's end--and past it. + And zephyrs matter, that never lift up a sail, + Save that of the thistle voyaging over the meadow._ + + _And the lark--oh--the sunny lark--as well as the songless petrel, + Who cries the foamy length of a thousand leagues. + And silence matters, silence free of all surging, + Silence, the spirit of happiness and home._ + + _And oh how much the laugh of a child matters: + More than the green of an island suddenly lit by sun at dawn. + And friends, the greetings of friends, how they matter: + More than ships that meet and fling a wild ahoy and pass, + On any alien tides however enchanted. + And the face of love, the evening face of love, at a window waiting, + Shall ever a kindled Light on any long-unlifting shore, + Shall ever a Harbor Light like that light matter?_ + + _Ah no! so enough of the sea and the soul for a season. + Too long followed they leave life as a dream, + Reality as a mirage when port is made. + "Ever in sight of the human," is the helm-word of the wisest, + For earth is not earth to one upon the flood of infinity; + To the eye, then, it is but an atom-star, adrift, and oh, + No longer warm with the beating of countless hearts._ + + _No longer warm with the human throb--the simple breath of today, + With yester-hours or the near dreams of to-morrow. + No longer rich with the little innumerous blooms of brief delights, + Nor all divinely drenched with sympathy. + No longer green with the humble grass of duties that must grow, + To clothe it against desert aridity. + No longer zoned with the air of hope, no longer large with faith-- + No longer heaven enough--if Heaven fails us!_ + + + + +HAUNTED SEAS + + + A gleaming glassy ocean, + Under a sky of gray; + A tide that dreams of motion, + Or moves, as the dead may; + A bird that dips and wavers + Over lone waters round, + Then with a cry that quavers + Is gone--a spectral sound. + + The brown sad sea-weed drifting + Far from the land, and lost. + The faint warm fog unlifting, + The derelict long-tossed, + But now at rest--tho haunted + By the death-scenting shark, + Whose prey no more undaunted + Slips from it, spent and stark. + + + + +SEA LURE + +(_The Maine Coast_) + + + It is so, O sea! wild roses + Bloom here in the scent of your brine. + And the juniper round them closes, + And the bays amid them twine, + To guard and to praise their beauty; + And the gulls above them cry, + And the stern rocks stand on duty, + Where the surf beats white and high. + + It is so, O sea! wild roses, + With the day-long fog bedrenched, + Have come from their inland closes + With a thirst for you unquenched. + And over your cliffs they clamber, + And over your vast they gaze; + For the tides of you can enamour + Even them with their woodland ways. + + Yea, the passion of you and the power + And the largeness are a lure + To even the heart of a flower, + O sea, with a heart unsure! + For love is a thing unsated, + Nor ever in any breast + Has it dwelt, all want abated, + At rest. + + + + +SONGS TO A. H. R. + + +I + +MINGLINGS + + It is the old old vision, + The moonlit sea--and you. + I cannot make disseverance + Between the two. + For all the world's wide beauty + To me you seem, + All that I love in shadow + Or glow or gleam. + + It is the old old murmur, + The sea's sound and your voice. + God in his Bliss between them + Could make no choice. + For all the world's deep music + In you I hear: + Nor shall I ask death, ever, + For aught more dear. + + +II + +LOVE AND INFINITY + + Across the kindling twilight moon + A late gull wings to rest. + The sea is murmuring underneath + Its vast eternal quest. + The coast-light flashes over the tide + A red and warning eye, + And oh the world is very wide, + But you are nigh! + + The stars come out from zone to zone, + The wind knows every one + And blows their message to my heart, + As it has ever done. + "They are all God's," it tells me, "all, + However huge or high." + But ah I could not trust its call-- + Were you not by! + + +III + +RECOMPENSE + + Not if I chose from a world of days + Could I find a day like this. + The sky is a wreath of azure haze + And the sea an azure bliss. + The surf runs racing the young salt wind, + Shouting without a fear + Over reef, bar, cliff and scaur, + Where you and I lie near. + + O you and I who have watched the sky + And sea from many a shore! + You, love, and I who will live and die-- + And watch the sea no more! + O joy of the world! Joy of love, + Joy that can say to death, + "Tho you end all with your wanton pall, + We two have had this breath!" + + +IV + +AT THE EBB-HOUR + + As I hear, thro the midnight sighing, + The low ebb-tide withdrawn, + And gulls on the dark cliff crying + For far discernless dawn, + It seems that all life is lying + Within your every breath, + Yet I can not believe in dying, + Or death. + + As I hear, from the gray church tower, + The bell's unfailing sound + Peal forth hour after hour + To night's lone reaches round, + It seems as if Time's wan power + Would sear all things apace-- + All, save in my heart one flower, + Your face. + + +V + +IN A DARK HOUR + + You are not with me--only the moon, + The sea and the gulls' cry, out of tune; + The myriad cry of the gulls still strewn + On the sands where the tide will enter soon. + + You are not with me, only the breath + Of the wind--and then the wind's death. + A shrouding silence then that saith, + "Even as wind love vanisheth." + + You are not with me--only fear, + As old as earth's first frenzied bier + That severed two whose hearts were near, + And left one with all Life unclear. + + +VI + +VIA AMOROSA + + When we two walk, my love, on the path + The moon makes over the sea, + To the end of the world where sorrow hath + An end that is ecstasy, + Should we not think of the other road + Of wearying dust and stone + Our feet would fare did each but care + To follow the way alone? + + When we two slip at night to the skies + And find one star that we keep + As a trysting-place to which our eyes + May lead our souls ere sleep, + Should we not pause for a little space + And think how many must sigh + Because they gaze over starry ways + With no heart-comrade by? + + When we two then lie down to our dreams + That deepen still the delight + Of our wandering where stars and streams + Stray in immortal light, + Should we not grieve with the myriads + From East of earth to West + Who lay them down at night but to drown + A longing for some loved breast? + + Ah, yes, for life has a thousand gifts, + But love it is gives life. + Who walks thro his world in loneness lifts + A soul that is sorrow-rife. + But they to whom it is given to tread + The moon-path and not sink + Can ever say the unhappiest way + Earth has is fair, to the brink. + + +VII + +TRANSFUSION + + A shoal-light flashes east, + And livid lightning west, + The silvery dark night-sea between, + On which we ride at rest, + And gaze far, far away + Into the fretless skies, + World-sadness in our thought--but ah, + Content within our eyes. + + The ship's bell strikes--the sound + Floats shrouded to our ears, + Then suddenly, as at a touch, + The universe appears + A Presence Infinite + That penetrates our love + And makes us one with night and sea + And all the stars above. + + + + +NEED OF STORM + +(_Naples-on-the-Gulf_) + + + On the green floor of the Gulf the wind is walking, + Printing it with invisible feet; + The tide is talking. + + Purple and grey the horizon walls them round + With purpler clouds. + They wander in it like guests gently astray + In a house deep mystery shrouds. + + I do not know the speech of the tide, + For too articulate have become my years: + Beauty brings only words, not breathless tears. + + So the young heron fishing there in the foam + On the sand's edge, + Would once have taken my spirit far, far home + To the infinite, when he vanished thro the gloam. + + But now I am left behind on the beach--a shell + That no more knows the wonder of the sea's swell, + Or more than the empty echo of its knell. + + To sea then, Life, wildly to sea with a storm + Sweep me again, + From the smooth dull beach of custom where I lie, + That I may feel once more + The swaying surge of passion thro me swarm! + + + + +A FLORIDA INTERLUDE + +(_Naples-on-the-Gulf_) + + + I + + Behind me lie the Everglades, + The mystic grassy Everglades, + Where the moccasin and the Seminole glide + In secret silent Indian ways. + Before me lies the Gulf, + The cup of blue bright tropic waters, + Held to the parched lips of the South + To cool and quench its thirst. + + Behind me lie the Everglades, + Before me lies the Gulf, + Which the sunset soon shall change to wine, + A Eucharist for the longing soul. + Its rim of land shall be transformed + To Mexic opal and chrysoprase, + And then shall come the moon + As calm as a thought of Christ. + + As calm as a thought of Christ-- + Over the cup's sand-rim enchased + With palm and pine, Floridian friends, + Saying their twilight litanies; + While homeward flies the heron + To his island cypress in the swamp, + Which Spanish mosses drape and the moon + Silverly soothes to peace. + + + II + + Behind me lie the Everglades, + Where the bittern wails to the moon's face. + Peace is gone as I wake + And memory in me wails + From the primal swamp, Heredity, + Whence I have come with all the desires + Of creeping, walking, flying things, + To creep or walk or fly. + + With all the desires of the earth-creatures; + Yet with a want transcendent, + A want that comes with the glimmer of stars + And pierces to my heart. + A want of the life I have not known, + Of the life unknowable, + In the Everglades of the Universe + Where the Great Spirit glides. + + + + +A FLORIDA BOATING SONG + + + Down thro Florida keys, + From island, to island! + Down thro Florida keys, + Where mangrove roots dip in the seas! + A myriad tangled roots + From each palmetto byland, + Oyster-encrusted roots mid which + The heron wades in the shallow shades! + + Down thro Florida keys, + Around them, between them, + Thro low green Florida keys, + So low they scarce seem born of the seas! + Where pouchy pelicans roost + On cypresses that lean them + Out over the idle lap of the tide + That comes and goes with balmy flows! + + Down thro Florida keys, + Thro mazes on mazes + Of ripple-encircled keys, + Where sun and wind play as they please! + Where the eaglet, high in air, + Or the wild white ibis, dazes + Eyes that follow them up the blue, + As the heart would do, the heart too! + + Down thro Florida keys + I'm going, I'm going! + Thro low green Florida keys + And greener glades of Florida seas! + And this is all I know, + That all in the world worth knowing + Is joy like that of the tarpon's leap + In air divine with the warm sunshine! + + + + +DAWN-BLISS + +(_Naples-on-the-Gulf_) + + + I went out at dawn, + Pelicans were fishing, + Big-beaked, grey and brown; + Little waves were swishing. + Clouds creamed the sky, + As shells creamed the shore; + Wild aery hues of beauty + Round seemed to pour! + + I went out at dawn, + Pelicans were floating, + Big beaks on their breasts; + Up the sun came boating. + "Ship ahoy!" I cried, + To his golden sail. + Bliss-winds of beauty in me + Broke--to a gale! + + I went out at dawn, + Pelicans were winging. + Palms waved passion plumes, + Beach sands were singing. + Stripped, save of strength, + I plunged into the sea + And swam, till the bliss of beauty + Died away in me. + + + + +ATAVISM + + + I leant out over a ledging cliff and looked down into the sea, + Where weed and kelp and dulse swayed, in green translucency; + Where the abalone clung to the rock and the star-fish lay about, + Purpling the sands that slid away under the silver trout. + + And the sea-urchin too was there, and the sea-anemone. + It was a world of watery shapes and hues and wizardry. + And I felt old stirrings wake in me, under the tides of time, + Sea-hauntings I had brought with me out of the ancient slime. + + And now, as I muse, I cannot rid my senses of the spell + That in a tidal trance all things around me drift and swell + Under the sea of the Universe, down into which strange eyes + Keep peering at me, as I peered, with wonder and surmise. + + + + +RE-RECKONING + + + Two years have gone, and again I stand + On the bow of a mighty ship + That pushes her way 'twixt sea and stars + With soft and dreamy dip. + Two years of labouring, heart and hand, + Of waging spirit-wars, + Of wondering ever what life is-- + And if death heals its scars. + + Two years; and again the mast-bell sounds + Above me--with a low voice, + As ghostly as the white phosphor-foam + That breaks with the old noise + Of waters that have washed all bounds + Of earth, that is man's home-- + His ark--on the wide ether flung, + Unrestingly to roam. + + For, even as we, is this our earth + An endless wanderer + Far down a universe with vast + Strange voyagings astir; + And where time ever brings to birth + A craving, never past, + To fare from where we are, to where + No anchor ever was cast. + + A craving--in the mote, the man, + The mollusc and the star; + A yearning on--O life! O life! + How far leads it, how far? + All unbelievably began + Our voyage, mid a strange strife-- + That, meaningless, yet seems to mean + It is with Wisdom rife. + + But if it is not, shall we say, + "Let man scuttle his ship, + And drown in universal death + The griefs that at him grip?" + No; for no surety rests therein + To certain end of breath. + He can but let hope set the course + His soul foretokeneth. + + + + +TO THE AFTERNOON MOON, AT SEA + + + Take care, O wisp of a moon, + Vague on the sunny blue above the sea, + Or the gull flying across you + Will pierce your veil-thin shape with a sharp wing! + + Take care, or the wind will wilt you, + As he does the clouds snowily drifting by you, + And diffuse you over the sky, a silvery mist, + To give more cool to the day! + + Take care, so near the horizon, + Or a phantom skipper, one who has long been drowned, + Will reach above it and seize you + And make you his sail to circle the world forever! + + Take care, take care! for frailty + Is the prey of the strong, and you, a wraith of it, + Have yet a long while to go before nightfall + Brings you to sure effulgence! + + + + +PATHS + + + Crushing in my hand + The bay as I pass, + Drinking in its fragrance + With the sea's scent, + While gull-wings write + Poems white and fast + On the blue sky + That is soft with content; + Crushing in my hand + The bay and the juniper, + While I record + Each line the gulls write, + I go by sea paths + Down to the sea's edge, + I go by heart paths + Deep into delight. + + Simple is my joy + As the little sandpiper's, + Who follows beside me + With silvery song; + Blither than the breeze, + That skims great billows + Nor knows how deep + Is their flow--or strong. + Simple is my joy, + A sunny sense-sweetness, + Full of bird-bliss, + Bay-warmth, spray-leap. + Mysteries there are + And miseries beneath it, + But sunk, like wrecks, + Far down in the deep. + + + + +FROM A NORTHERN BEACH + + + Is it because for a million years + The tide has entered here + From cold north seas + Where ice-floes freeze + That ever unto my ear + Primordial loneness in its voice + Comes telling of that time + When life was not, upon the earth, + But only glacier-rime? + + Is it because these granite rocks + I share with weed and scurf + Were held so long + By the ice-throng + That now they take the surf + So selflessly and soullessly, + As if God's Immanence + Had been pressed from them, never more + To enter, with sweet sense? + + And is it because I, too, evolved + From ice and sea and shore, + Can understand + How life has spanned + The lifeless ages o'er, + That as I sit here, suddenly + The tide again seems stilled + And earth beneath a great white pall + Again lies changed and chilled? + + So it must be--ah, so; for soft + Within my muted brain + The heritage + Of age on age + Reverberates again. + Wherefore when glacial Silence comes + With Death shall I emerge + From that as from the frozen Past, + Under Life's endless urge? + + + + +PASSAGE + + + A dark sail, + Like a wild-goose wing, + Where the sunset was. + The moon soon will silver its sinewy flight + Thro the night watches, + And the far flight + Of those immortal migrants, + The ever-returning stars. + + + + +ALEEN + + + The long line of the foaming coast + Is muffled by the fog's gray ghost. + I cross the league of sea between + And lift the latch and kiss Aleen. + + She throws a log upon the fire. + I draw her to me, nigh and nigher. + She does not know what a brief time + Ago it was my arms held--crime. + + The surf is beating on the shore. + We hear our own heart-beatings more. + She speaks of _him_ and my reply + Is silence: does she wonder why? + + "I do not love him: have no fear," + Her whisper is, against my ear. + At last, "I have no fear," say I. + She starts, as at a wild-beast's cry. + + And then she sees red on my coat. + A still-born cry throbs in her throat. + The fog sweeps by the window pane. + Her sight is fixed on one dull stain. + + I rise and light my pipe and go, + Leaving her standing, staring so. + The wind means storm, I think, to-night: + But more than that will make her white. + + And yet had it been yesterday + She said those words, I still could pray. + There would be still a God above-- + For two, now overwhelmed, to love! + + + + +TO A SOLITARY SEA-GULL + + + Lone white gull with sickle wings, + You reap for the heart inscrutable things: + Sorrow of mists and surf of the shore, + Winds that sigh of the nevermore; + Fret of foam and flurry of rain, + Swept far over the troubled tide; + Maths of mystery and grey pain + The sea's voice ever yields, beside. + Lone white gull, you reap for the heart + Life's most sad and inscrutable part. + + + + +INEFFABLE THINGS + + + The little song-sparrow is gone + And the summer is nearly ended, + The rill of his song was a happy rift + In the surging sound of the sea. + The swallow is lingering on, + And the silvery swift sandpiper, + And I--tho I know my saddened heart + Has lost an ineffable thing, + That summer no more can bring. + + With the first bay-leaves that flung + Their scent to me by the billows, + I twined some faith, some trust, + As glad as the sparrow's song. + And the terns that darted among + The tides seemed weaving for me + Impalpable wings of peace and hope-- + That now have taken flight + Beyond the day and the night. + + Ah, Life, you have known my plea + For sun and the tide of fortune, + For winds to waken my sail and bear + Me joyously over the world. + Know too how much of your fog + And storm and rain I will suffer, + If only you do not sweep from me + The dear ineffable things, + To which your fragrance clings. + + + + +THE SONG OF A SEA-FARER + + + Many are on the sea to-day + With all sails set. + The tide rolls in a restive gray, + The wind blows wet. + The gull is weary of his wings, + And I am weary of all things. + + Heavy upon me longing lies, + My sad eyes gaze + Across sad leagues that sink and rise + And sink always. + My life has sunk and risen so, + I'd have it cease awhile to flow. + + + + +WAVES + + + The evening sails come home + With twilight in their wings. + The harbour-light across the gloam + Springs; + The wind sings. + + The waves begin to tell + The sea's night-sorrow o'er, + Weaving within their ancient spell + More + Than earth's lore. + + The rising moon wafts strange + Low lures across the tide, + On which my dim thoughts seem to range, + Stride + Upon stride, + + Until, with flooding thrill, + They seem at last to blend + With waves that from the Eternal Will + Wend, + Without end. + + + + +IN A STORM + +(_To a Petrel_) + + + All day long in the spindrift swinging, + Bird of the sea! bird of the sea! + How I would that I had thy winging-- + How I envy thee! + + How I would that I had thy spirit, + So to careen, joyous to cry, + Over the storm and never fear it! + Into the night that hovers near it! + Calm on a reeling sky! + + All day long, and the night, unresting! + Ah! I believe thy every breath + Means that life's best comes ever breasting + Peril and pain and death! + + + + +AFTER THEIR PARTING + +(_A Woman Speaks_) + + + You know that rock on a rocky coast, + Where the moon came up, a ruined ghost, + Distorted until her shape almost + Seemed breaking? + Came up like a phantom silently + And dropped her shroud on the red night sea, + Then walked, a spectral mystery, + Unwaking? + + You know how, sudden, there came a change, + When she had left the sea's low range, + Its lurid crimson, stark and strange, + Behind her? + How, sudden, her silver self shone thro, + Tranquilly free of the earth's stained hue, + And found a way where the clouds were few + To bind her? + + You know this? Then go back some day, + When I have gone the moonless way, + To that dark rock whereon we lay + And waited; + And when the moon has arisen free, + Your soiling doubt shall fall from me, + And eased of unrest your heart shall be, + And sated. + + + + +A WORD'S MAGIC + + + Do you remember Etajima, + And how, upon a moon-fogged sea, + As ghostly as ever a tide shall be, + We passed an island silently? + + And how a low voice in the gloom + Of the temple pine-trees leaning there + Said _sayonara_ to one somewhere + Unseen in the shadow-haunted air? + + Just _sayonara_: but it seemed + The soul of all farewells that night, + The sigh of all withdrawn delight, + The sound of love's last rapture-rite. + + And now, after long years, it comes + Again from isles of memory + To bring once more to birth in me + The breath of all lost witchery. + + Yes, one low word of parting, now + Echoing, thro the fog of years, + Has touched my heart with beauty's tears, + And youth thro all things reappears. + + + + +SEA RHAPSODY + +(_Out of Hong-kong_) + + + Never again, never again + Did I hope to breathe such joy! + The sea is blue and the winds halloo + Up to the sun "Ahoy!" + "Ahoy!" they shout and the mists they rout + From the mountain-tops go streaming + In happy play where the gulls sway, + And a million waves are gleaming! + + And every wave, billowing brave, + Is tipped with a wild delight. + A garden of isles around me smiles, + Bathed in the blue noon light, + The rude brown bunk of the fishing junk + Seems fair as a sea-king's palace: + O wine of the sky the gods have spilt + Out of its crystal chalice! + + For wine is the wind, wine the sea, + Wine for the sinking spirit, + To lift it up from the cling of clay + Into high Bliss--or near it! + So let me drink till I cease to think, + And know with a sting of rapture + That joy is yet as wide as the world + For men, at last, to capture! + + + + +IN AN ORIENTAL HARBOUR + + + All the ships of the world come here, + Rest a little, then set to sea; + Some ride up to the waiting pier, + Some drop anchor beyond the quay. + Some have funnels of blue and black, + (Some come once but come not back!) + Some have funnels of red and yellow, + Some--O war!--have funnels of gray. + + All the ships of the world come here, + Ships from every billow's foam; + Fruiter and oiler, pirateer, + Liner and lugger and tramp a-roam. + Some are scented of palm and pine, + (Some are fain for the Pole's far clime). + Some are scented of soy and senna, + Some--ah me!--are scented of home. + + All the ships of the world come here, + Day and night there is sound of bells, + Seeking the port they calmly steer, + Clearing the port they ring farewells. + Under the sun or under the stars + (Under the light of swaying spars), + Under the moon or under morning + Do they swing, as the tide swells. + + All the ships of the world come here, + Rest a little and then are gone, + Over the crystal planet-sphere + Swept, thro every season, on. + Swept to every cape and isle + (Every coast of cloud or smile), + Swept till over them sweeps the sorrow + Of their last sea-dawn. + + + + +UNDER THE SKY + + + Far out to sea go the fishing junks, + With all sails set, + The tide swings gray and the clouds sway, + The wind blows wet; + Blows wet from the long coast lying dim + As if mist-born. + Far out they sail, as the stars pale, + The stars of morn. + + Far out to sea go the fishing junks, + And I who pass + Upon a deck that is vaster reck + No more, alas, + Of all their life, or they of mine, + Than comes to this,-- + That under the sky we live and die, + Like all that is. + + + + +A SONG FOR HEALING + +(_On the South Seas_) + + + When I return to the world again, + The world of fret and fight, + To grapple with godless things and men, + In battle, wrong or right, + I will remember this--the sea, + And the white stars hanging high, + And the vessel's bow + Where calmly now + I gaze to the boundless sky. + + When I am deaf with the din of strife, + And blind amid despair, + When I am choked with the dust of life + And long for free soul-air, + I will recall this sound--the sea's, + And the wide horizon's hope, + And the wind that blows + And the phosphor snows + That fall as the cleft waves ope. + + When I am beaten--when I fall + On the bed of black defeat, + When I have hungered, and in gall + Have got but shame to eat, + I will remember this--the sea, + And its tide as soft as sleep, + And the clear night sky + That heals for aye + All who will trust its Deep. + + + + +A SINGHALESE LOVE LAMENT + + + As the cocoanut-palm + That pines, my love, + Away from the sound + Of the planter's voice, + Am I, for I hear + No more resound + Your song by the pearl-strewn sea! + The sun may come + And the moon wax round, + And in its beam + My mates may rejoice, + But I feast not + And my heart is dumb, + As I long, O long, for thee! + + In the jungle-deeps, + Where the cobra creeps, + The leopard lies + In wait for me, + But O, my love, + When the daylight dies + There is more to my dread than he! + Harsh lonely tears + That assail my eyes + Are worse to bear,-- + For the misery + That makes them well + Is the long, long years + That I moan away from thee! + + O again, again, + In my katamaran + A-keel would I push + To your palmy door! + Again would I hear + The heave and hush + Of your song by the plantain-tree. + But far away + Do I toil and crush + The hopes that arise + At my sick heart's core. + For never near + Does it come, the day + That draws me again to thee! + + + + +THE CITY + + + Soft and fair by the Desert's edge, + And on the dim blue edge of the sea, + Where white gulls wing all day and fledge + Their young on the high cliff's sandy ledge, + There is a city I have beheld, + Sometime or where, by day or dream, + I know not which, for it seems enspelled + As I am by its memory. + + Pale minarets of the Prophet pierce + Above it into the white of the skies, + And sails enchanted a thousand years + Flit at its feet while fancy steers. + No face of all its faces to me + Is known--no passion of it or pain. + It is but a city by the sea, + Enshrined forever beyond my eyes! + + + + +FULL TIDE + + + Sea-scents, wild-rose scents, + Bay and barberry too, + Drench the wind, the Maine wind, + That gulls are dipping thro, + With soft hints, sweet hints, + With lull, lure and desire; + With memory-wafts and mysteries, + And all the ineffable histories + Made when the sea and land meet, + And the sun lends nuptial fire. + + Sea-foam, and dream-foam, + And which is which, who knows, + When all day long the heart goes out + To every wave that blows, + That blossoms on the bright tide, + Then sheds a shimmering crest + And yields its tossing place to one + Whose blooming is as quickly done-- + For beauty is ever swift--begot + Of rapture and unrest. + + Sea-deeps, and soul-deeps, + And where shall faith be found + If not within the heart's beat + Or in the surging sound + Of the sea, which is the earth's heart, + Beating with tireless might; + Beating--tho but a tragedy + Life seems on every land and sea; + Beating to bring all breath, somehow, + Out of despair's blight. + + + + +THE HERDING + + + Quietly, quietly in from the fields + Of the grey Atlantic the billows come, + Like sheep to the fold. + Shorn by the rocks of fleecy foam, + They sink on the brown seaweed at home; + And a bell, like that of a bellwether, + Is scarcely heard from the buoy-- + Save when they suddenly stumble together, + In herded hurrying joy, + Upon its guidance: then soft music + From it is tolled. + + Far out in the murk that follows them in + Is heard the call of the fog-horn's voice, + Like a shepherd's--low. + And the strays as if waiting it seem to pause + And lift their heads and listen--because + It is sweet from wandering ways to be driven, + When we have fearless breasts, + When all that we strayed for has been given, + When no want molests + Us more--no need of the tide's ebbing + And tide's flow. + + + + +ON THE MAINE COAST + + + The rocks, lean fingers of the land, + Reach out into the sea + And cool themselves, all day long, + In the tide drippingly. + They catch the seaweed in them + And the starfish on their tips, + And gulls that light + And the swift flight + Of swallows skimming grey and white-- + And spars of broken ships. + + The moon, God's perfect silver, + With which He pays the world + For toil and quest and day's unrest, + Is washed on them and swirled. + And avidly they seize it, + Then let it slip away, + Only again + And yet again + To grasp at it--as eager men + At joy no hand can stay. + + + + +SEANCE + + + Hovering wings of terns + Over the rock-pools flutter, + For the tide, ebbed far out, + Seems to stumble and stutter; + Seems like a spirit lost, + Unable to come again + Back to the wonted ways and days + Of ever-wanting men. + + And the moon, a medium + Trance-pale, is laying her light + Over its surge--till, lo, + It turns from the deep and night. + And the spirit-word it brings + Is the message of all time, + That doubt is only the ebb of faith, + Which ever reflows sublime! + + + + +A SIDMOUTH LAD + + + Salcombe Hill and four hills more + Lie to leftward of this shore. + On the right Peak Hill arises + Ever rises, sickening, o'er. + + Two score rotting years I've seen + Sidmouth sit those hills between: + Only Sidmouth--and twice over + Must I bide it, as I've been. + + Then a churchyard hole for me, + By the dull voice of the sea. + Rotting, still in Sidmouth rotting, + Rotting to eternity. + + + + +WIDOWED + + + One wild gull on a wilder storm, + Winging to keep her lone heart warm. + One wild gull by the surf--and I, + Beaten by wind and rain and sky. + + One wild gull in the offing lost, + Wilder heart in my bosom tost. + One wild gull--O why but one! + Two, dear God, should there be--or none! + + + + +TO THE SEA + + + Are you enraged, O sea, with the blue peace + Of heaven, so to uplift your armied waves, + Your billowy rebellion against its ease, + And with Tartarean mutter from cold caves, + From shuddering profundities where shapes + Of awe glide thro entangled leagues of ooze, + To hoot your watery omens evermore, + And evermore your moanings interfuse + With seething necromancy and mad lore? + + Or do you labour with the drifting bones + Of countless dead, O mighty Alchemist, + Within whose stormy crucible the stones + Of sunk primordial shores, granite and schist, + Are crumbled by your all-abrasive beat? + With immemorial chanting to the moon, + And cosmic incantation, do you crave + Rest to be found not till your wilds are strewn + Frigid and desert over earth's last grave? + + You seem drunk with immensity, mad, blind-- + With raving deaf, with wandering forlorn, + Parent of Demogorgon whose dire mind + Is night and earthquake, shapeless shame and scorn + Of the o'ermounting birth of Harmony. + Bound in your briny bed and gnawing earth + With foamy writhing and fierce-panted tides, + You are as Fate in torment of a dearth + Of black disaster and destruction's strides. + + And how you shatter silence from the world, + Incarnate Motion of all mystery! + Whose waves are fury-wings, whose winds are hurled + Whither your Ghost tempestuous can see + A desolate apocalypse of death. + Yea, how you shatter silence from the world, + With emerald overflowing, waste on waste + Of flashing susurration, dashed and swirled + On isles and continents that shrink abased! + + And yet, O veering veil of the Unknown, + Gathered from primal mist and firmament; + O surging shape of Life's unfathomed moan, + Whelming humanity with fears unmeant; + Yet do I love you, far above all fear, + And loving you unconquerably trust + The runes that from your ageless surfing start + Would read, were they revealed, gust upon gust, + That Immortality is might of heart! + + + + +SEA-MAD + +(_A Breton Maid_) + + + Three waves of the sea came up on the wind to me! + One said: + "Away! he is dead! + Upon my foam I have flung his head! + Go back to your cote, you never shall wed!-- + (Nor he!)" + + Three waves of the sea came up on the wind to me. + Two brake. + The third with a quake + Cried loud, "O maid, I'll find for thy sake + His dead lost body: prepare his wake!" + (And back it plunged to the sea!) + + Three waves of the sea came up on the wind to me. + One bore-- + And swept on the shore-- + His pale, pale face I shall kiss no more! + Ah, woe to women death passes o'er! + (Woe's me!) + + + + +THE ATHEIST + + + Over a scurf of rocks the tide + Wanders inward far and wide, + Lifting the sea-weed's sloven hair, + Filling the pools and foaming there, + Sighing, sighing everywhere. + + Merged are the marshes, merged the sands, + Save the dunes with pine-tree hands + Stretching upward toward the sky, + Where the sun, their god, moves high: + Would I too had a god--yea, I! + + For, the sea is to me but sea, + And the sky but infinity. + Tides and times are but some chance + Born of a primal atom-dance. + All is a mesh of Circumstance. + + In it there is no Heart--no Soul-- + No illimitable Goal-- + Only wild happenings, by wont + Made into laws no might can shunt + From the deep grooves in which they hunt. + + Wings of the gull I watch or claws + Of the cold crab whose strangeness awes: + Faces of men that feel the force + Of a hid thing they call life's course: + It is their hoping or remorse. + + Yet it may be that I have missed + Something that only they who tryst, + Not with the sequence of events + But with their viewless Immanence, + Find and acclaim with spirit-sense. + + + + +AT THE HELM + +(_Nova Scotia_) + + + Fog, and a wind that blows the sea + Blindly into my eyes. + And I know not if my soul shall be + When the day dies. + + But if it be not and I lose + All that men live to gain-- + I who have known but heaving hues + Of wind and rain-- + + Still I shall envy no man's lot, + For I have held this great, + Never in whines to have forgot + That Fate is Fate. + + + + +IMPERTURBABLE + + + Three times the fog rolled in today, a silent shroud, + From which the breakers ran like ghosts, moaning and tumbling. + Three times a startled sea-bird cried aloud, + On the wind stumbling. + + But I cast my net with never a fear, tho wraiths in me + And birds of wild unrest were stirring and starting and crying. + For I knew that under the sway of every sea + There is calm lying. + + + + +WASTE + + + I flung a wild rose into the sea, + I know not why. + For swinging there on a rathe rose-tree, + By the scented bay and barberry, + Its petals gave all their sweet to me, + As I passed by. + + And yet I flung it into the tide, + And went my way. + I climbed the gray rocks, far and wide, + And many a cove of peace I tried, + With none of them all to be satisfied, + The whole long day. + + For I had wasted a beautiful thing, + Which might have won + Each passing heart to pause and sing, + On the sea-path there, of its blossoming. + And who wastes beauty shall feel want's sting, + As I had done. + + + + +RESURGENCE + + + I was content, O Sea, to be free for a space from striving, + Content as the brown weed is, at rest on rocks in the sun, + When the salt tide is out, and the surf no more is riving + At its roots, or swirling and bidding it sway where the white waves run. + + I was content--with life, and love, and a little over; + A little achieved of the much that is given to men to do. + But now with your tidal strife do you come again, vain rover, + And tell of vastitudes, to be sailed, or sounded, anew. + + Now again do you surge. And the fathomless tides of thinking, + Of wanting, waiting, despairing--or daring--with you come; + The inner tides of the soul, that had ebbed with slumberous shrinking, + But now are bursting again, thro the caves of it long numb. + + So vainly I lie on the cliff with the blissful Blue above me + And listless sated gulls afloat below on the swells, + For I am soothless, sateless, because of desires that shove me + Out and away with the winds, on quests no distance quells! + + + + +LIFE'S ANSWER + + + A stroke of lightning stabbed the storm-black sea, + As if it sought the heart of Life thereunder, + And meant to put an end to it utterly;-- + Then came thunder-- + Wildly applauding thunder. + + Riven with fear the foam-crests ran before it, + Hissed by the rain and beaten down to darkness. + A gull rose out of the murk with wings that tore it-- + Life's answer to the storm's terrible starkness. + + + + +AS THE TIDE COMES IN + + + The quivering terns dart wild and dive, + As the tide comes tumbling in. + The calm rock-pools grow all alive, + With the tide tumbling in. + The crab who under the brown weed creeps, + And the snail who lies in his house and sleeps, + Awake and stir, as the plunging sweeps + Of the tide come tumbling in. + + Gray driftwood swishes along the sand, + As the tide comes tumbling in. + With wreck and wrack from many a land, + On the tide, tumbling in. + About the beach are a broken spar, + A pale anemone's torn sea-star + And scattered scum of the waves' old war, + As the tide tumbles in. + + And, oh, there is a stir at the heart of me, + As the tide comes tumbling in. + All life once more is a part of me, + As the tide tumbles in. + New hopes awaken beneath despair + And thoughts slip free of the sloth of care, + While beauty and love are everywhere-- + As the tide comes tumbling in. + + + + +SENSE-SWEETNESS + + + Flowers are dancing, waves playing, pines swaying, gulls are a-swarm; + Sea and heather, sunning together, glad of the weather, with God are warm. + + Flowers are dancing, clouds winging, larks singing, summer abrew-- + Summer the old ecstatic passion of Life to fashion the world anew. + + + + +TIDALS + + + Low along the sea, low along the sea, + The gray gulls are flying, and one sail swings; + The tide is foaming in; the soft wind sighing; + The brown kelp is stretching, to the surf, harp-strings. + + Low along the sea, low along the sea, + The gray gulls are flying, and one sail fades; + The tide is foaming out; the soft wind dying; + And white stars are peeping from the night's pale shades. + + + + +A SAILOR'S WIFE + + + Into port when the sun was setting + Rode the ship that bore my love, + Over the breakers wildly fretting, + Under the skies above. + + Down to the beach I ran to meet him; + He would come as he had said: + And he came--in a sailor's coffin, + Dead! . . . . . . + + O the ships of the sea! the lovers + Torn by them apart!... + The tide has nothing now to tell me, + The breakers break my heart! + + + + +TO SEA! + + + Give me the tiller; up with the sail! + Now let her swing to the breeze. + Out to sea with a dripping rail, + To sea, with a heart at ease! + + Out of the Harbour! out of the Bay! + Out by the valiant Light, + Out by rocks where the young gulls lay-- + And glad winds teach them flight! + + Out of the Harbour! out of the Bay! + Out to the open sea! + O there's not in the world a way + To feel so wildly free! + + So, let her quiver! So, let her leap! + So, let her dance the foam! + All life else is a narrow keep, + The sea alone is home! + + + + +GIVE OVER, O SEA! + + + Give over, O sea! You never shall reach Nirvana! + Your tides, like the tidal generations, ever shall rise and fall, + And your infinite waves find birth, rebirth, and billowy dissolution. + + The years of your existence are unending. + The years of your unresting are forever. + The sun, who is desire, ever begets in you his passion, + And the moon is ever drawing you, with silvery soft alluring, + To surge and sway, to wander and fret, to waste yourself in foam. + So Buddha-calm shall never descend upon you. + + And tho it may often seem you have found the Way, + Your tempest-sins return and quicken to wild reincarnations, + And again great life, pulsing and perilous, + Omnipotent life, that ever resurges thro the universe, + Lashes you back to striving, back to yearning, back to speech. + To utterance on all shores of the world + Of things unutterable. + + Give over then, you never shall reach Nirvana! + Nor I, who am your acolyte for a moment; + Who swing a censer of fragrant words before your priestly feet, + That tread these altar-rocks, bedraped with weeds gently afloat, + And with the wild flutter of gulls wildly mysterious. + + Give over and call your winds again to join you! + O chanter of deep enchantments, of uncharted litanies, + Call them and bid them say with you that life transcends retreat, + And that, in the temple of its Immanence, + There is no peace that does not spring daily from peacelessness, + And no Nirvana save in the lee of storm. + + + + +THE NUN + + + A lone palm leans in the moonlight, + Over a convent wall. + The sea below is waking and breaking + With a calm heave and fall. + A young nun sits at a window; + For Heaven she is too fair; + Yet even the dove of God might nest + In her bosom beating there. + + A lone ship sails from the harbour: + Whom does it bear away? + Her lover who, sin-hearted, has parted + And left her but to pray? + She has no lover, nor ever + Has heard afar love's sigh. + Only the Convent's vesper vow + Has ever dimmed her eye. + + For naught knows she of her beauty, + More than the palm of its peace: + And none shall cross her portal, to mortal + Desires to bend her knees. + The ways of the world have flowers, + And any who will pluck those; + But in His hand, against all harm, + God still will keep some rose. + + + + +LAST SIGHT OF LAND + + + The clouds in woe hang far and dim; + I look again, and lo, + Only a faint and shadow line + Of shore--I watch it go. + + The gulls have left the ship and wheel + Back to the cliff's gray wraith. + Will it be so of all our thoughts + When we set sail on Death? + + And what will the last sight be of life + As lone we fare and fast? + Grief and a face we love in mist-- + Then night and awe too vast? + + Or the dear light of Hope--like that, + Oh, see, from the lost shore + Kindling and calling "Onward, you + Shall reach the Evermore!" + + +THE END + + + On this and following pages are listed other books by Cale + Young Rice. They are all published by The Century Co., 353 + Fourth Avenue, New York City. + + +SHADOWY THRESHOLDS + +By CALE YOUNG RICE + +"Cale Young Rice is far too great a pout to be acclaimed in some +partisan circles.... He is intensely American ... as authentic an artist +as Shelley or Keats.... He has the magic of Poe without that poet's +morbidity.... He is America's living master-poet."--_D. F. Hannigan (The +Rochester Post-Express)._ + +"This volume maintains Mr. Rice's usual high level and proves anew his +right to one of the high places among modern poets."--_Edward J. Wheeler +(Current Opinion)._ + +"Mr. Rice is modern in the broadest sense of that term. Many of his +poems are without rhyme and have irregular metres, but they never offend +thereby.... His place in contemporary first class company is +secure.--_The Springfield Republican._ + +"A volume possessing range and variety, together with a lyric quality +which distinguishes this poet, who ranks among the foremost American +writers."--_The Post-Intelligencer (Seattle)._ + +"Mr. Rice in his dramas is an enchanter, and to cast a spell is better +than to have uttered the most lovely lyrics--but he has done both."--_E. +A. Jonas (The Louisville Herald)._ + +"A new volume showing again the power and beauty of Mr. Rice's +genius."--_The Boston Globe._ + +"What a pleasure to take up a new book by Cale Young Rice. Here we have +variety, if ever.... If one can only own one of his books this is a good +volume to choose."--_The Galveston News._ + +"Cale Young Rice is a poet capable of sounding the deep imaginative +strain not only with melody, but with vigor and power of thought. This +volume will add another shining stone to his reputation."--_The San +Francisco Chronicle._ + +"Once more a book of the same high order as all Mr. Rice's work."--_The +Rochester Democrat-Chronicle._ + +"Shadowy Thresholds has as great a variety of poetic forms as any volume +of late years.... Mr. Rice illumines many phases of life, uniting in his +work the finish and romance of the older poetry with the directness that +constitutes the best merit of the new."--_The Louisville Evening Post._ + +_12mo. 179 pages. Price $1.50_ + + +WRAITHS AND REALITIES + +By CALE YOUNG RICE + +"In the writing of lyrics Mr. Rice is unequalled by any modern poet.... +One must go outside of contemporary life to find anything of similar +excellence."--_Gordon Ray Young (The Los Angeles Times)._ + +"A new book by Mr. Rice is always an event in American +letters...."--_The New York Tribune._ + +"Here, for all to read, is poetic genius spurred and wrought upon ... by +a rare and wondrous poetic inspiration.... It is like great chimes +sounding--jangled at times or overborne--but always great."--_The +Philadelphia North American._ + +"Mr. Rice in his narratives can tell such tales as the old ballad-makers +would have gloated over, and can make them contemporary and convincing. +He can create life tragedies or comedies in a few lines and leave the +reader with a sense of having been given a full meal of circumstance.... +He is original without striving to be so, and one can never be +embarrassed by the affirmation that he has come to hold a high place +among poets of America."--_The Chicago Tribune._ + +"Cale Young Rice has been credited with some of the finest poetry, and +regarded as a distinguished master of lyric utterance, and this latest +volume is warrant for such approval."--_The Brooklyn Eagle._ + +"We find in Mr. Rice the large and elemental vision a poet must have to +serve his people when overwhelmed by elemental sorrows and passions. His +poetry is a spiritual force interpreting life in the various phases of +intellect and emotion, with a beauty of finish and sense of form that +are unerring."--_The Louisville Post._ + +"All that has been said of Cale Young Rice, and that is much indeed, is +justified in this latest volume."--_The San Francisco Chronicle._ + +"Cale Young Rice is a real poet of genuine and sincere inspiration, +never reminiscent or imitative or obvious, but singing from a full heart +his keen, meditative songs."--_The New York Times._ + +_12mo. 187 pages. Price $1.50_ + + +COLLECTED PLAYS AND POEMS + +By CALE YOUNG RICE + +"The great quality of Cale Young Rice's work is that, amid all +distractions and changes in contemporary taste, it remains true to the +central drift of great poetry. His interests are very wide ... and his +books open up a most varied world of emotion and romance."--_Gilbert +Murray._ + +"The quality of Mr. Rice's work is high. It is seen at its best in his +poetic dramas, which maintain an astonishing elevation and intensity of +passion ... but his visionary and philosophical poems are nearly as +fine. He has a thorough mastery of form, yet notwithstanding the ease of +his verse it is never slipshod or mechanical."--_The Spectator +(London)._ + +"With variations of phrase Cale Young Rice has been described by critics +here and in America as "the most distinguished master of lyric utterance +in the New World." ... He has dramatic genius ... and is a born maker of +songs.... His later volumes confirm the judgment of those who have named +him the first and most distinctive of modern American lyrists, and one +of the world's true poets."--_F. Heath (The London Bookman)._ + +"Mr. Rice is an American poet whose reputation is deserved.... He has +achieved a high position as poet and dramatist, a great fertility and +variety of outlook being marked features of his work."--_The London +Times._ + +"Foremost among writers who have brought America into prominence in the +realm of modern thought is Mr. Cale Young Rice.... 'Collected Plays and +Poems' is one of the best offerings of verse we have had for long. +Indeed, it has real brilliance.... Mr. Rice's plays are +masterful."--_The Book Monthly (London)._ + +"Cale Young Rice is highly esteemed by readers wherever English is the +native speech."--_The Manchester Guardian._ + +"In Mr. Rice we have a voice such as America has rarely known +before."--_The Rochester (N. Y.) Post-Express._ + +"Mr. Rice of today is the poet who sang to us yesterday of the big, +vital things of life.... With real genius he brings to the soul a sense +of things many of us have but dimly sensed in all our years."--_The +Philadelphia Record._ + +"These volumes are an anthology wrought by a master hand and endowed +with perennial vitality.... This writer is the most distinguished master +of lyric utterance in the new world ... and he has contributed much to +the scanty stock of American literary fame. Fashions in poetry come and +go, and minor lights twinkle fitfully as they pass in tumultuous review. +But these volumes are of the things that are eternal in poetic +expression.... They embody the hopes and impulses of universal +humanity."--_The Philadelphia North-American._ + +"Mr. Rice has been hailed by too many critics as the poet of his +country, if not of his generation, not to create a demand for a full +edition of his works."--_The Hartford (Conn.) Courant._ + +"This gathering of his forces stamps Mr. Rice as one of the world's true +poets, remarkable alike for strength, versatility and beauty of +expression."--_The Chicago Herald (Ethel M. Colton)._ + +"It is with no undue repetition that we speak of the very great range +and very great variety of Mr. Rice's subject, inspiration, and mode of +expression.... The passage of his spirit is truly from deep to +deep."--_Margaret S. Anderson (The Louisville Evening Post)._ + +"It is good to find such sincere and beautiful work as is in these two +volumes.... Here is a writer with no wish to purchase fame at the price +of eccentricity of either form or subject."--_The Independent._ + +"Mr. Rice's style is that of the masters.... Yet it is one that +is distinctively American.... He will live with our great +poets."--_Louisville Herald (J. J. Cole)._ + +"Mr. Rice is an American by birth, but he is not merely an American +poet. Over existence and the whole world his vision extends. He is a +poet of human life and his range is uncircumscribed."--_The Baltimore +Evening News._ + +"Viewing Mr. Rice's plays as a whole, I should say that his prime virtue +is fecundity or affluence, the power to conceive and combine events +resourcefully, and an abundance of pointed phrases which recalls and +half restores the great Elisabethans. His aptitude for structure is +great."--_The Nation (O. W. Firkins)._ + +"Mr. Rice has fairly won his singing robes and has a right to be ranked +with the first of living poets. One must read the volumes to get an idea +of their cosmopolitan breadth and fresh abiding charm.... The dramas, +taken as a whole, represent the most important work of the kind that has +been done by any living writer.... This work belongs to that great world +where the mightiest spiritual and intellectual forces are forever +contending; to that deeper life which calls for the rarest gifts of +poetic expression."--_The Book News Monthly (Albert S. Henry)._ + +_12mo. 2 vols. Price $4.00_ + + + The following volumes are now included in the author's + "Collected Plays and Poems," and are not obtainable + elsewhere: + + +At the World's Heart + +"This book justifies the more than transatlantic reputation of its +author."--_The Sheffield (England) Daily Telegraph._ + + +Porzia: A Play + +"It matters little that we hesitate between ranking Mr. Rice highest as +dramatist or lyrist; what matters is that he has the faculty divine +beyond any living poet of America; his inspiration is true, and his +poetry is the real thing."--_The London Bookman._ + + +Far Quests + +"It shows a wide range of thought and sympathy, and real skill in +workmanship, while occasionally it rises to heights of simplicity and +truth, that suggest such inspiration as should mean lasting fame."--_The +Daily Telegraph (London)._ + + +The Immortal Lure: Four Plays + +"It is great art--with great vitality."--_James Lane Allen._ + +"Different from Paola and Francesca, but excelling it--or any of Stephen +Phillips's work--in a vivid presentment of a supreme moment in the lives +of the characters."--_The New York Times._ + + +Many Gods + +"These poems are flashingly, glowingly full of the East.... What I am +sure of in Mr. Rice is that here we have an American poet whom we may +claim as ours."--_William Dean Howells, in The North American Review._ + + +Nirvana Days + +"Mr. Rice has the technical cunning that makes up almost the entire +equipment of many poets nowadays, but human nature is more to him always +... and he has the feeling and imaginative sympathy without which all +poetry is but an empty and vain thing."--_The London Bookman._ + + +A Night in Avignon: A Play + +"It is as vivid as a page from Browning. Mr. Rice has the dramatic +pulse."--_James Huneker._ + + +Yolanda of Cyprus: A Play + +"It has real life and drama, not merely beautiful words, and so differs +from the great mass of poetic plays."--_Prof. Gilbert Murray._ + + +David: A Play + +"It is safe to say that were Mr. Rice an Englishman or a Frenchman, his +reputation as his country's most distinguished poetic dramatist would +have been assured by a more universal sign of recognition."--_The +Baltimore News._ + + +Charles Di Tocca: A Play + +"It is the most powerful, vital, and truly tragical drama written by an +American for some years. There is genuine pathos, mighty yet never +repellent passion, great sincerity and penetration, and great elevation +and beauty of language."--_The Chicago Post._ + + +Song-Surf + +"Mr. Rice's work betrays wide sympathies with nature and life, and a +welcome originality of sentiment and metrical harmony."--_Sydney Lee._ + + +TRAILS SUNWARD + +By CALE YOUNG RICE + +"Cale Young Rice has written some of the finest poetry of the last +decade, and is the author of the very best poetic dramas ever written by +an American.... He is one of the few supreme lyrists ... and one of the +few remaining lovers of beauty ... who write it. One of the very few +writers of _vers libre_ who know just what they are doing."--_The Los +Angles Times._ + +"Another book by Cale Young Rice ... one of the few poetic geniuses this +country has produced.... In its sixty or more poems may be found the +hall mark of individuality that denotes preeminence and signalizes +independence."--_The Philadelphia North American._ + +"Mr. Rice attempts and succeeds in deepening the note of his singing ... +keeping its brilliant technique, its intricate verse formation, but +seeking all the while for words to interpret the profound things of +life. The music of his lines is more perfect than ever, his rhythms +fresh and varied."--_Littell's Living Age._ + +"Cale Young Rice's work is always simple and sincere ... but that does +not prevent him from voicing his song with passion and virility. Nearly +all his poems have elevation of thought and feeling, with beauty of +imagery and music."--_The New York Times._ + +"Whether the forms of this book are lyrical, narrative, or dramatic, +there is an excellence of workmanship that denotes the master hand.... +And while the range of ideas is broad, the treatment of each is +distinguished by a strength and beauty remarkably fine."--_The Continent +(Chicago)._ + +"Mr. Rice proves the fine argument of his preface ... for this book has +in it form and beauty and a full reflection of the externals as well as +the soul of the America he loves."--_The Philadelphia Public Ledger._ + +"The work of this poet always demands and receives unstinted +admiration.... His is not the poetic fashion of the moment, but of all +poetic time."--_The Chicago Herald._ + +"In 'Trails Sunward,' Mr. Rice demonstrates as heretofore the +possibility of attaining poetic growth and originality even in the +Twentieth Century, without extremism.... Sanity linked with vitality and +breadth in art make for permanence, and one can but feel that Mr. Rice +builds for more than a day."--_The Louisville Courier Journal._ + +"I rarely use the term 'sublimity,' yet in touches of 'The Foreseers,' +particularly in its cavern-set opening, I should say that Mr. Rice had +scaled that eminence."--_O. W. Firkins (The Nation)._ + +_12mo. 150 pages. Price $1.50_ + + +EARTH AND NEW EARTH + +By CALE YOUNG RICE + +"America has today no poet who answers so well the multiplex tests of +poetry as does Cale Young Rice."--_New York Sun._ + +"Glancing through the reviews quoted at the end of 'Earth and New Earth' +we note that we have said some very enthusiastic things in praise of the +poetry of Cale Young Rice, and yet there is not an adjective we would +withdraw. On the contrary each new volume only confirms the expectation +of the better work this writer was to produce."--_The San Francisco +Chronicle._ + +"This is a volume of verse rich in dramatic quality and beauty of +conception.... Every poem is quotable and the collection must appeal to +all who can appreciate the highest forms of modern verse."--_The +Bookseller (New York)._ + +"Any one familiar with 'Cloister Lays,' 'The Mystic,' etc., does not +need to be told that they rank with the very best poetry. And Mr. Rice's +dramas are not equaled by any other American author's.... And when those +who are loyal to poetic traditions cherished through the whole history +of our language contemplate the anemia and artificiality of +contemporaries, they can but assert that Mr. Rice has the grasp and +sweep, the rhythm, imagery and pulsating sympathy, which in wondering +admiration are ascribed to genius."--_The Los Angeles Times._ + +"This latest collection shows no diminution in Mr. Rice's versatility or +power of expression. Its poems are serious, keen, distinctively free and +vitally spiritual in thought."--_The Continent (Chicago)._ + +"Mr. Rice is concerned with thoughts that are more than timely; they +represent a large vision of the world events now transpiring ... and his +affirmation of the spiritual in such an hour establishes him in the +immemorial office of the poet-prophet.... The volume is a worthy +addition to the large amount of his work."--_Anna L. Hopper in The +Louisville Courier-Journal._ + +"Cale Young Rice is the greatest living American poet."--_D. F. +Hannigan, Lit. Ed. The Rochester Post-Express._ + +"The indefinable spirit of swift imaginative suggestion is never +lacking. The problems of fate are still big with mystery and propounded +with tense elemental dramatism."--_The Philadelphia North-American._ + +"The work of Cale Young Rice emerges clearly as the most distinguished +offering of this country to the combined arts of poetry and the drama. +'Earth and New Earth' strikes a ringing new note of the earth which +shall be after the War."--_The Memphis Commercial-Appeal._ + +_12mo. 158 pages. $1.50_ + + +TURN ABOUT TALES + +(PROSE) + +By CALE YOUNG RICE and ALICE HEGAN RICE + +"This volume of stories should hold its own with any collection likely +to be published this year."--_New York Post (The Literary Review)._ + +"American writers have been distinctive as narrators of the short story, +but few, if any, volumes of such stories have recently been published in +this country equal to 'Turn About Tales.'"--_D. F. Hannigan (The +Rochester Post-Express)._ + +"The gamut of the volume runs from spiritualism to the depths. It +contains something of almost anything one happens to want. Better yet, +it contains something new."--_The Boston Transcript._ + +"Mr. Rice has written well--so well as to justify prediction that he +will, if he elect to do so, achieve greater distinction as a short story +writer than as a poet. His 'Lowry,' 'Francella' and 'Aaron Harwood,' to +cite a few of the stories, meet the test of artistic stories.... Each +leaves an impression that will impel re-reading."--_Galveston News._ + +"Both writers portray, in their best vein, a consummate though +distinctive skill in analyzing and delineating human emotions and +experience."--_Buffalo Commercial._ + +"Those who have read Mr. Rice's poetry will find his dramatic genius +manifest in these stories."--_The Watchman, N. Y._ + +"Mrs. Rice's humor and pathos combine well with Mr. Rice's mastery of +diction and deep human understanding."--_Milwaukee Journal._ + +"Each story is notable for beauty of technique ... each has its definite +appeal."--_Louisville Evening Post (Margaret S. Anderson)._ + +"Each of the stories is of such finished workmanship as to make reading +of it an unadulterated pleasure."--_Baltimore Sun._ + +"The book is one of the best of the kind in this year's American +fiction."--_The Spectator (Portland, Ore.)_ + +"Mr. Rice has grappled with the constructive problems of his time, so +one finds them without surprise in this newly adopted vehicle.... Three +of his stories have a realism as relentless as Chekov's ... and it goes +without saying that his stories are technically admirable."--_Louisville +Courier-Journal._ + +"Mr. Rice so lives through his characters that, as Whitman says, he 'Is +that man' of whom he writes."--_Pittsburg Sun._ + +"The same dramatic power and beauty that mark Mr. Rice's lyrics will be +found in these prose stories."--_Cincinnati Times-Star._ + +"One seldom finds a book of short stories so satisfying +throughout."--_Minneapolis Journal._ + +_Price $1.90_ + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Sea Poems, by Cale Young Rice + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SEA POEMS *** + +***** This file should be named 31877.txt or 31877.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/8/7/31877/ + +Produced by David Garcia, Josephine Paolucci and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. 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