From the Lips of the Sea

Excerpt

SEA MARVELS

  This morning more mysterious seems the sea
  Than yesterday when, with reverberant roar,
  It charged upon the beaches, and the sky
  Above it shimmered cloudless. Now the waves
  Lap languorously along the foamless sand,
  And till the far horizon swims in mist.
  Out of this murk, across this oily sweep,
  Might lost armadas grandly sail to shore;
  Jason might oar on Argo, or the stern
  Surge-wanderer from Ithaca's bleak isle
  Break on the sight, or Viking prows appear,
  And still not waken wonder. Aye, the sound
  Of siren singing might drift o'er the main,
  And yet not fall upon amazèd ears!
  The soul is ripe for marvels. O great deep,
  Give up your host of stately presences,
  Adventurers and sea-heroes of old time,
  And let them pass before us down the day
  In proud procession, so that we who hear
  Dull bells mark off the uneventful hours
  May glimpse the bygone bravery of the world
  Now moiling in its multitudinous marts,
  Forgetful of fair faith and high resolve
  In the inglorious grapple after gold!

  The mist crept in from the sea
    Out of the void and the vast;
  And it bore the silver rain
  A shimmering guest in its train,
  And many a murmuring strain
    Of the ships that sailed in the past;
  Soft as sleep's footfalls be
  The mist crept in from the sea.

  The mist crept in from the sea
    And folded the length of the shore
  In the clasp of its mothering arms
  As though it would shield from harms;
  And lulled were the loud alarms,
    And lost was the rage and roar
  Of the surge, so soothingly
  The mist crept in from the sea.

  The mist crept in from the sea,
    White, impalpable, strange;
  Pull of the wafture of wings,
  Of eerie and eldritch things,
  Of visions and vanishings
    Ever in shift and change;
  Silently, hauntingly,
  The mist crept in from the sea.

  The mist crept in from the sea,
    And bode for a space, and then
  It heard the imperious call
  Of the deep, transcending all,
  And it knew itself as the thrall
    Of the world-old master of men,
  So, still as the dreams that flee,
  The mist crept back to the sea.

DIRGE FOR A SAILOR

  Beyond the bourns of time and sleep,
    Beyond the sway of tides,
  A voyager o'er death's darksome deep,
    His ship at anchor rides.

  He who from boyhood never knew
    A garden save the foam,
  Whose only rooftree was the blue,
    At last has found a home.

  And what more fit than that the wave
    He loved through life to stem
  Should sing above his green sea grave
    This sailor's requiem!

  Above the shouting of the gale,
    The whipping sheet, the dashing spray,
  I heard, with notes of joy and wail,
    A piper play.

  Along the dipping deck he trod,
    The dusk about his shadowy form;
  He seemed like some strange ancient god
    Of song and storm....