From The Lips of the Sea | Page 3

breakers clash and boom;?We saw them plunge and writhe and rise,?And toss great flakes of ashen spume?High toward the ashen skies.
Out of the welter of the east?One gaunt barque like a spectre bore;?The mad wind trumpeted, then ceased,?Then trumpeted once more.
A mist crept landward, the spent wraith?Of tempests raging far a-lee;?Then day died like an outworn faith,?And night fell on the sea.
II
O'erhead, the iridescence of the stars,?Ray blending softly with refulgent ray;?Below, above the harbor's hidden bars,?The crumbling iridescence of the spray.
Before, a beacon flashing level lines,?Seemingly poised upon the far sea-verge;?Behind, the night wind in the oaks and pines,?Crooning in answer to the crooning surge.
DAWN, THE HARVESTER
The purple sky has blanched to blue?With freaks and streaks of rose and fawn,?While on the rolling meads of sea?Gleam the gold footsteps of the Dawn.
What harvest, think you, will he find?Whither he sets his feet to roam??Upon that boundless beryl plain?Only the lilies of the foam!
THE LILAC SEA
A cool wind took me by the hand?And led me on beguilingly,?Until before me, broad and bland,?Shimmered the lilac sea.
Great gulls, with mauve upon their wings,?And cries that lingered hauntingly,?Hovered, with graceful flutterings,?Above the lilac sea.
The curving shore-line had the gleam?Of amethyst; it seemed to me?The ships were all like ships of dream?Upon the lilac sea.
And naught was real, or near or far,?And yet I have the memory?Of twilight, and the vesper star,?Hung o'er the lilac sea.
A SAILOR AMID THE HILLS
What does he hear in dreams? The surging wind,?Its long-drawn cadence, its wild harmony,?A mighty harp of infinite strings designed,?Whose sound to him seems sweet immeasurably??Nay, nay, but through the spaces of his mind,?Plangent or pleading, loud or low-defined,?The ever-haunting murmur of the sea!
SUMMER BY THE SEA
This is a song of summer by the sea,?Of surge-profundos chanted o'er and o'er;?Of ancient wrath and immemorial glee,?And of the ships that sailed and come no more.
This is a song of summer by the sea,?Of half-forgotten runes made long ago,?Of moon-wrought marvel and of mystery,?Of glamor--of the glow and after-glow.
This is a song of summer by the sea,?Of subtleties of change, of strange unrest;?Of dreams unfathomable that form and flee?Like drifts of mist above the ocean's breast.
DUSK AT SEA
Dusk, like a moth of violet wing, descends?Upon the beryl bosom of the sea,?And in the sky's serene immensity,?Where the impalpable rose of sunset blends?With pearl and purple, shine the sailor's friends,?God's blessed beacons twinkling timorously,?Then brighter, each in its divine degree,?To where the enrapt range of vision ends.
When dusk droops dark o'er life's uncertain seas,?Closing our day, deep-shadowing the sun,?And we go forth across death's pathless foam,?May we have stars more stedfast e'en than these,--?Burning above, for us to gaze upon,?Both light and guide on the long journey home.
THE SPEECH OF THE SEA
All yesterday the sea was sapphire fair,?And the waves told, with little rippling glees,?Of ships that sailed, and then returned to bear?Their golden argosies.
But ah, to-day the sea is ashen gray,?And ceaselessly has sobbed unto the shore?Of those ill-fated barques that sailed away?And came again no more!
NIGHT BY THE SEA
I woke in the black watches of the night?And heard the low intoning of the main,?A muffled heart-beat, an unceasing strain?Of music keyed to dolor and delight.?Now sorrow seemed ascendent, now the height?Of rapture beat in the sublime refrain,?Until the whole world's happiness and pain?Had echoed utterance while the dark took flight.
Then in the sound of that reiterant surge?I marked my own life's flux of bliss and woe--?Grief's long drawn sigh and joy's exultant call;?Till borne by dreams beyond the vast sea verge?I touched those shores the blest immortals know?Where youth and love have triumph over all.
AUTUMN BY THE SEA
Still on the sand and shingle gleams the sun;?Still an unclouded heaven arches o'er;?And still the languid billows roll and run?Down all the lengths of shore.
Still there are hints of summer in the air,?A sense of restfulness, of rapt repose;?And from remote sea gardens, lush and fair,?Rich attars like the rose.
Still a soft haze of delicate hyacinth?Broods o'er the sky-line, floating faint and far;?Still on the edge of night's vast labyrinth?Shines the clear vesper-star.
Soon, all too soon, the spindrift and the spume,?The legions of the surge that fleetly form;?The gray, illimitable wastes of gloom--?The thunderous caves of storm!
MIST AT SEA
The sea was mist-enwreathed at morn,?A void unspeakably forlorn;?Yet from the seeming barren gloom?Beauty, the dream of the world, was born.
A sudden wafture of wind breath,?And lo, sun glories none gainsaith!?Thus shall the wings of the soul emerge?White from the chrysalis of death.
A SEA SCENE
From rim to shimmering rim the sea?Is burnished like chalcedony.
The waves that set their lips to land?Scarce make a murmur on the sand.
The ships appear to poise between?Two voids of opalescent sheen.
Aye, here eternal calm seems set?In bland beatitude, and yet
A single potent hour, aye, less,?Can change this placid loveliness,
And cause, where life smiles fair and