A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems | Page 4

for the foam.
Life holds not an hour that is better to live in:
the past is a tale that is told,?The future a sun-flecked shadow, alive and asleep,
with a blessing in store.?As we give us again to the waters, the rapture
of limbs that the waters enfold?Is less than the rapture of spirit whereby,
though the burden it quits were sore,?Our souls and the bodies they wield at their will
are absorbed in the life they adore--?In the life that endures no burden, and bows not
the forehead, and bends not the knee--?In the life everlasting of earth and of heaven,
in the laws that atone and agree,?In the measureless music of things, in the fervour
of forces that rest or that roam,?That cross and return and reissue, as I
after you and as you after me?Strike out from the shore as the heart in us bids
and beseeches, athirst for the foam.
For, albeit he were less than the least of them, haply
the heart of a man may be bold?To rejoice in the word of the sea as a mother's
that saith to the son she bore,?Child, was not the life in thee mine, and my spirit
the breath in thy lips from of old??Have I let not thy weakness exult in my strength,
and thy foolishness learn of my lore??Have I helped not or healed not thine anguish, or made not
the might of thy gladness more??And surely his heart should answer, The light
of the love of my life is in thee.?She is fairer than earth, and the sun is not fairer,
the wind is not blither than she:?From my youth hath she shown me the joy of her bays
that I crossed, of her cliffs that I clomb,?Till now that the twain of us here, in desire
of the dawn and in trust of the sea,?Strike out from the shore as the heart in us bids
and beseeches, athirst for the foam.
Friend, earth is a harbour of refuge for winter,
a covert whereunder to flee?When day is the vassal of night, and the strength
of the hosts of her mightier than he;?But here is the presence adored of me, here
my desire is at rest and at home.?There are cliffs to be climbed upon land, there are ways
to be trodden and ridden, but we?Strike out from the shore as the heart in us bids
and beseeches, athirst for the foam.
THE SUNBOWS.
Spray of song that springs in April,
light of love that laughs through May,?Live and die and live for ever:
nought of all thing far less fair?Keeps a surer life than these
that seem to pass like fire away.?In the souls they live which are
but all the brighter that they were;?In the hearts that kindle, thinking
what delight of old was there.?Wind that shapes and lifts and shifts them
bids perpetual memory play?Over dreams and in and out
of deeds and thoughts which seem to wear?Light that leaps and runs and revels
through the springing flames of spray.
Dawn is wild upon the waters
where we drink of dawn to-day:?Wide, from wave to wave rekindling
in rebound through radiant air,?Flash the fires unwoven and woven
again of wind that works in play,?Working wonders more than heart
may note or sight may wellnigh dare,?Wefts of rarer light than colours
rain from heaven, though this be rare.?Arch on arch unbuilt in building,
reared and ruined ray by ray,?Breaks and brightens, laughs and lessens,
even till eyes may hardly bear?Light that leaps and runs and revels
through the springing flames of spray.
Year on year sheds light and music
rolled and flashed from bay to bay?Round the summer capes of time
and winter headlands keen and bare?Whence the soul keeps watch, and bids
her vassal memory watch and pray,?If perchance the dawn may quicken,
or perchance the midnight spare.?Silence quells not music, darkness
takes not sunlight in her snare;?Shall not joys endure that perish?
Yea, saith dawn, though night say nay:?Life on life goes out, but very
life enkindles everywhere?Light that leaps and runs and revels
through the springing flames of spray.
Friend, were life no more than this is,
well would yet the living fare.?All aflower and all afire
and all flung heavenward, who shall say?Such a flash of life were worthless?
This is worth a world of care--?Light that leaps and runs and revels
through the springing flames of spray.
ON THE VERGE.
Here begins the sea that ends not
till the world's end. Where we stand,?Could we know the next high sea-mark
set beyond these waves that gleam,?We should know what never man hath
known, nor eye of man hath scanned.?Nought beyond these coiling clouds
that melt like fume of shrines that steam?Breaks or stays the strength of waters
till they pass our bounds of dream.?Where the waste Land's End leans westward,
all the seas it watches roll?Find their border fixed beyond them,
and a worldwide shore's control:?These whereby we stand no shore
beyond us limits: these are free.?Gazing hence, we see the water
that grows iron round the Pole,?From the shore that hath no shore
beyond it set in all the sea.
Sail on sail along the sea-line
fades and flashes; here