| |
| THE SUNLIGHT glitters keen and bright, | |
| Where, miles away, | |
| Lies stretching to my dazzled sight | |
| A luminous belt, a misty light, | |
| Beyond the dark pine bluffs and wastes of sandy gray. | 5 |
| |
| The tremulous shadow of the Sea! | |
| Against its ground | |
| Of silvery light, rock, hill, and tree, | |
| Still as a picture, clear and free, | |
| With varying outline mark the coast for miles around. | 10 |
| |
| On—on—we tread with loose-flung rein | |
| Our seaward way, | |
| Through dark-green fields and blossoming grain, | |
| Where the wild brier-rose skirts the lane, | |
| And bends above our heads the flowering locust-spray. | 15 |
| |
| Ha! like a kind hand on my brow | |
| Comes this fresh breeze, | |
| Cooling its dull and feverish glow, | |
| While through my being seems to flow | |
| The breath of a new life,—the healing of the seas! | 20 |
| |
| Now rest we, where this grassy mound | |
| His feet hath set | |
| In the great waters, which have bound | |
| His granite ankles greenly round | |
| With long and tangled moss, and weeds with cool spray wet. | 25 |
| |
| Good-by to pain and care! I take | |
| Mine ease to-day: | |
| Here where these sunny waters break, | |
| And ripples this keen breeze, I shake | |
| All burdens from the heart, all weary thoughts away. | 30 |
| |
| I draw a freer breath—I seem | |
| Like all I see— | |
| Waves in the sun—the white-winged gleam | |
| Of sea-birds in the slanting beam— | |
| And far-off sails which flit before the south-wind free. | 35 |
| |
| So when Time’s veil shall fall asunder, | |
| The soul may know | |
| No fearful change, nor sudden wonder, | |
| Nor sink the weight of mystery under, | |
| But with the upward rise, and with the vastness grow. | 40 |
| |
| And all we shrink from now may seem | |
| No new revealing; | |
| Familiar as our childhood’s stream, | |
| Or pleasant memory of a dream, | |
| The loved and cherished Past upon the new life stealing. | 45 |
| |
| Serene and mild the untried light | |
| May have its dawning; | |
| And, as in summer’s northern night | |
| The evening and the dawn unite, | |
| The sunset hues of Time blend with the soul’s new morning. | 50 |
| |
| I sit alone; in foam and spray | |
| Wave after wave | |
| Breaks on the rocks which, stern and gray, | |
| Shoulder the broken tide away, | |
| Or murmurs hoarse and strong through mossy cleft and cave. | 55 |
| |
| What heed I of the dusty land | |
| And noisy town? | |
| I see the mighty deep expand | |
| From its white line of glimmering sand | |
| To where the blue of heaven on bluer waves shuts down! | 60 |
| |
| In listless quietude of mind, | |
| I yield to all | |
| The change of cloud and wave and wind, | |
| And passive on the flood reclined, | |
| I wander with the waves, and with them rise and fall. | 65 |
| |
| But look, thou dreamer!—wave and shore | |
| In shadow lie; | |
| The night-wind warns me back once more | |
| To where, my native hill-tops o’er, | |
| Bends like an arch of fire the glowing sunset sky. | 70 |
| |
| So then, beach, bluff, and wave, farewell! | |
| I bear with me | |
| No token stone nor glittering shell, | |
| But long and oft shall Memory tell | |
| Of this brief thoughtful hour of musing by the Sea. | 75 |
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