A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems | Page 4

wild wide shore.
Her call is a trumpet compelling
us homeward:
if dawn in her east be acold,
From the sea shall we crave not her
grace to rekindle
the life that it kindled before,
Her breath to requicken, her bosom to
rock us,
her kisses to bless as of yore?
For the wind, with his wings half open,
at pause
in the sky, neither fettered nor free,
Leans waveward and flutters the
ripple to laughter
and fain would the twain of us be
Where lightly the wave yearns
forward from under

the curve of the deep dawn's dome,
And, full of the morning and fired
with the pride
of the glory thereof and the glee,
Strike out from the shore as the
heart in us bids
and beseeches, athirst 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