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| 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. | |
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| Into the choiring, clashing, wild waste of waters strown | 5 |
| 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! | |
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| Forget the city and all its troubles, leave forever | |
| Our dusty ways! The Eternal ’round us rolled | 10 |
| Shall wash us white of the little sins and fears that sever, | |
| Lave us, and leave us lovers as of old— | |
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| 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, | 15 |
| Nor Yesterday, but heaven and ocean.—Sweetheart, come | |
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| 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! | 20 |
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| 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; | |
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| But in our jubilant breasts the embattled life at bay | 25 |
| 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, | |
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| Where we press forward, laughing for lusty love, and the hollows | |
| Receive us and rise, the foam of the breaker’s crest | 30 |
| Unfolds like a flower and dies of its kiss, and subsides, and follows, | |
| Laughing and loving, where our limbs have pressed: | |
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| 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 | 35 |
| Mingle with winds and waters their delight. | |
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| 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. | 40 |
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| 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. | |
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| Where the heads of the sea were holy and lifted in wrath divine | 45 |
| 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! | |
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| Hark—how the lonely sea-bird screams above the surges | |
| And inland reaches! Now, far out, we roam | 50 |
| The desert and dumb vast of the dread sea that urges | |
| Our fitful course far out beyond the foam, | |
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| 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 | 55 |
| Will of the loving and reluctant wave. | |
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| 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. | 60 |
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| 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. | |
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| Shadow and light pass over shifting, shine and shade | 65 |
| 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. | |
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| The floors of the sea catch fire, the eye of the world’s light | |
| Dilates, and into a glory of glittering gold | 70 |
| Break the pale greens and purples; the sun in heaven’s height | |
| Unveils himself for all men to behold | |
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| 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, | 75 |
| Reaches one resonant and radiant room— | |
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| 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. | 80 |
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| 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. | |
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| Put out your hand. O cleave the clasp of the close wave, turning | 85 |
| 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. | |
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| Our hearts drink the wrath and the wonder, the breath of the boundless spaces | |
| Hallows our foreheads, the exceeding might | 90 |
| Of moving waters around us is music, and on our faces | |
The glory of God is shed, His holy light!
Reedy’s Mirror | |
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