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To R. D. S.
WE sat together, you and I, | |
| And watched the daylight’s dying bloom, | |
| And saw the great white ships go by, | |
| Like phantoms through the gathering gloom. | |
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| Like phantom lights the lonely stars | 5 |
| Looked through the sea-fog’s ghastly veil, | |
| Beyond the headland’s rocky bars | |
| We heard the stormy surges wail. | |
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| We sat together, hand in hand, | |
| Upon the lonely, sea-girt wall, | 10 |
| And watched, along the glimmering strand, | |
| The wild, white breakers plunge and fall. | |
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| You spoke of pleasures past away, | |
| Of hopes that left the heart forlorn, | |
| Of life’s unrest and love’s decay, | 15 |
| And lonely sorrows proudly borne. | |
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| The sea’s phantasmal sceneries | |
| Commingled with your mournful theme; | |
| The splendors of your starry eyes | |
| Were drowned in memory’s deepening dream. | 20 |
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| Darker and lonelier grew the night | |
| Along the horizon’s dreary verge, | |
| And lonelier through the lessening light | |
| Sang the wild sea-wind’s wailing dirge. | |
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| When, kindling through the gathering gloom, | 25 |
| Beyond West-Island’s beetling brow, | |
| Where breakers dash, and surges boom, | |
| We saw Point Judith’s fires aglow. | |
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| Piercing night’s solemn mystery, | |
| The lighthouse reared its lonely form, | 30 |
| Serene above the weltering sea | |
| And guardant through the gathering storm. | |
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| So, o’er the sea of life’s unrest, | |
| Through grief’s wild storm, and sorrow’s gloom, | |
| Faith’s heavenly pharos in the breast | 35 |
| Lights up the dark with deathless bloom. | |
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| The sea-born sadness of the hour | |
| Melted beneath its holy spell; | |
| Faith blossomed into perfect flower, | |
| And our hearts whispered, “All is well.” | 40 |
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