Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

William Stanley Braithwaite, ed. (1878–1962). Anthology of Magazine Verse for 1920.

Storm and Sun

O LOVE, now the herded billows over the holy plain

Of the trampled sea move thunderously, and cast

Their wrath on the dark shore—let us set out again,

Let us make seaward, and be gone at last.

Into the choiring, clashing, wild waste of waters strown

Around us,—forward—forward—, and leave behind

The little frets and the fevers, just we two alone,

Heart-free, as once in days long out of mind!

Forget the city and all its troubles, leave forever

Our dusty ways! The Eternal ’round us rolled

Shall wash us white of the little sins and fears that sever,

Lave us, and leave us lovers as of old—

Lovers as once in golden days gone by, till sorrow

Fall from us like a robe, the martyrdom

Of life on the daily rack: there shall be no Tomorrow,

Nor Yesterday, but heaven and ocean.—Sweetheart, come

And on the swelling pillow of the Unbounded lean

Your cheek, all fiery now—O let us press

Forward, the changeful furrows of the flashing foam between,

Our glowing bodies into the Loveliness!

The waves shatter, the billows break us, the sullen wrath

Of the surf beats down our foreheads.” Line on line

Rises the majesty of the sea to Oppose our path

With tingling bodies through the stinging brine;

But in our jubilant breasts the embattled life at bay

Exults fiercely for joy, the waves cry out

And shout in answering joy, the salt and savage spray

Showers our shoulders in the exuberant bout,

Where we press forward, laughing for lusty love, and the hollows

Receive us and rise, the foam of the breaker’s crest

Unfolds like a flower and dies of its kiss, and subsides, and follows,

Laughing and loving, where our limbs have pressed:

Till in the lustrous shadow of the last wave before us

We bow, and from the rolling billow’s might

Lift glimmering eyelids up, while hearts and lips in chorus

Mingle with winds and waters their delight.

Far—far—where the sea-bird sinks weary wings at last

Before the wrath of the wings of the wind, the sea

Makes moan, the inconsolable, pale waters are aghast,

And shudder with dread of their own immensity.

They murmur with one another, the voice of their vast prayer

Sinks down in supplication, and the sleep

Of the Supreme is stirred to whispers everywhere—

The dark and divine sorrows of the Deep.

Where the heads of the sea were holy and lifted in wrath divine

Now broods the silence, heaven holds its breath,—

Where the feet of the winds made music far out to the lone sea-line,—

The rapture and awe and silence as of death!

Hark—how the lonely sea-bird screams above the surges

And inland reaches! Now, far out, we roam

The desert and dumb vast of the dread sea that urges

Our fitful course far out beyond the foam,

Toward the most pallid rim of cloudy noonday steering

Steadily, while the fluent glooms and grave

Lap us and lift, repulse, and pause—the wild and veering

Will of the loving and reluctant wave.

The sombre and immense breast of the huge sea

Lifts in long lines of beauty, the supreme

Bosom with its vast love rises resistlessly,

And lapses in long lines into its dream.

Lone to the last marge—lone—lone—lone—

And void to where the huddled waters crowd

The brim—along the floor of heaven’s darkened throne

Moves, like a ghost, the shadow of a cloud.

Shadow and light pass over shifting, shine and shade

Vanish and veer, upon the chilly rim

Kindle like crowns the cloud-crests along the east arrayed

And swords of flame, like swords of the seraphim.

The floors of the sea catch fire, the eye of the world’s light

Dilates, and into a glory of glittering gold

Break the pale greens and purples; the sun in heaven’s height

Unveils himself for all men to behold

And all the world is a-riot, behind us and before,

With fire and color—the heavens roll back their gloom,

From zone to zone, from the zenith to the everlasting floor,

Reaches one resonant and radiant room—

Light!—Light! The astounded, far fields of ocean shine

Sheer gold and shimmering amber: where we take

The lips of the wave with laughter your eyes are turned to mine,

Sweetheart, your eyes that burn for beauty’s sake.

They tremble with happy tears and little words unspoken

Trouble your lips; dumbly, dumbly we know

Something starry and strange, that the world’s wheel has broken,

Come back to us out of the long-ago.

Put out your hand. O cleave the clasp of the close wave, turning

Its fire to flowers! Put out your hand, and move

Forward into the radiant far reaches ’round us burning,

Darling, as once in the old days of love.

Our hearts drink the wrath and the wonder, the breath of the boundless spaces

Hallows our foreheads, the exceeding might

Of moving waters around us is music, and on our faces

The glory of God is shed, His holy light!

Reedy’s Mirror