A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems | Page 5

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 on land
Flash and fade the wheeling wings
on wings of mews that plunge and scream.
Hour on hour along the
line
of life and time's evasive strand
Shines and darkens, wanes and
waxes,
slays and dies: and scarce they seem
More than motes that thronged
and trembled
in the brief noon's breath and beam.
Some with crying and wailing,
some
with notes like sound of bells that toll,
Some with sighing and
laughing, some
with words that blessed and made us whole,
Passed, and left us, and
we know not
what they were, nor what were we.
Would we know, being mortal?
Never
breath of answering whisper stole
From the shore that hath no shore
beyond it set in all the sea.
Shadows, would we question darkness?
Ere our eyes and brows be fanned
Round with airs of twilight,
washed
with dews from sleep's eternal stream,
Would we know sleep's
guarded secret?
Ere the fire consume the brand,
Would it know if yet its ashes

may requicken? yet we deem
Surely man may know, or ever
night unyoke her starry team,
What the dawn shall be, or if
the dawn shall be not, yea, the scroll
Would we read of sleep's dark
scripture,
pledge of peace or doom of dole.
Ah, but here man's heart leaps,
yearning
toward the gloom with venturous glee,
Though his pilot eye behold
nor bay nor harbour, rock nor shoal,
From the shore that hath no
shore
beyond it set in all the sea.
Friend, who knows if death indeed
have life or life have death for goal?
Day nor night can tell us, nor
may seas declare nor skies unroll
What has been from everlasting,
or if aught shall always be.
Silence answering only strikes
response reverberate on the soul
From the shore that hath no shore
beyond it set in all the sea.
_A NEW-YEAR ODE_
TO VICTOR HUGO
I.
Twice twelve times have the springs of years refilled
Their fountains
from the river-head of time
Since by the green sea's marge, ere

autumn chilled
Waters and woods with sense of changing clime,
A
great light rose upon my soul, and thrilled
My spirit of sense with
sense of spheres in chime,
Sound as of song wherewith a God would
build
Towers that no force of conquering war might climb.
Wind shook the glimmering sea
Even as my soul in me
Was stirred
with breath of mastery more sublime,
Uplift and borne along
More thunderous tides of song,
Where wave
rang back to wave more rapturous rhyme
And world on world flashed
lordlier light
Than ever lit the wandering ways of ships by night.
II.
The spirit of God, whose breath of life is song,
Moved, though his
word was human, on the face
Of those deep waters of the soul, too
long
Dumb, dark, and cold, that waited for the grace
Wherewith
day kindles heaven: and as some throng
Of quiring wings fills full
some lone chill place
With sudden rush of life and joy, more strong

Than death or sorrow or all night's darkling race,
So was my heart, that heard
All heaven in each deep word,
Filled
full with light of thought, and waxed apace
Itself more wide and deep,
To take that gift and keep
And cherish
while my days fulfilled their space;
A record wide as earth and sea,

The Legend writ of Ages past and yet to be.
III.
As high the chant of Paradise and Hell
Rose, when the soul of Milton
gave it wings;
As wide the sweep of Shakespeare's empire fell,

When life had bared for him her secret springs;
But not his various
soul might range and dwell
Amid the mysteries of the founts of
things;
Nor Milton's range of rule so far might swell
Across the

kingdoms of forgotten kings.
Men, centuries, nations, time,
Life, death, love, trust, and crime,

Rang record through the change of smitten strings
That felt an exile's hand
Sound hope for every land
More loud than
storm's