Song of the wave / George Cabot Lodge [electronic text]

TUCKANUCK

I

I AM content to live the patient day: The wind sea-laden loiters to the land And on the glittering gold of naked sand The eternity of blue sea pales to spray. In such a world we have no need to pray; The holy voices of the sea and air Are sacramental, like a mighty prayer In which the earth has dreamed its tears away. We row across the waters' fluent gold And age seems blessèd, for the world is old. Softly we take from Nature's open palm The dower of the sunset and the sky, And dream an Eastern dream, starred by the cryOf sea-birds homing through the mighty calm.

II

Thou art the dwelling of unshadowed sun That spills its metal on the furrowed tideAnd vivid grasses when the winds have died In threads of murmur round the noontide spun. The cerements of flesh are like a rose Caressed with light, whose petals, one by one Unfolding, loose the soul to die upon The ocean of the air that ebbs and flows. Perchance the truth is nearer than we deem, That after grievous pilgrimage and dearth The soul shall wake and find it close beside; And see, as visioned in a perfect dream, The pitiful grave spirit of the earth, A patient presence sitting at God's side.

III

I know it never shall come again,This present peace of the great grave sea And the land that laughs in its sheen of rain, This friendship of nature to you and me, While Autumn smiles on us, big and sane.

It never shall come though our love abide, And this very whisper stirs the grass, While clear and far on the tortured tide As now, the sea-birds cry and pass In years that shall come when our day has died.

It never shall come—must we praise or blame If every day moulds the world anew? Better perhaps, but never the same; If this that we cherish and hold for trueShall wither and fade to an empty name?

'Tis the woe o' the world! As the moments fly I war with time in a great despair, While the first shy star in the purple skySteals through the dead day's golden hair That I love so much though it comes to die.

IV
WIND OF TWILIGHT

"Cuando besa á la praderaLa brisa que entre las ramasPasa con voz lastimera."

— M. GARCIA MEROU.

GONE the red reaches of repining sea, Thou, thro' forgotten twilights, and thy pain, Wind of immortal longing, fresh as rain, Wonderful, fresh and faint, O mystery! Give me again the languorous touch of thee Lost in the purple shadows, while the main, Intervalled, lifts its choral, and again Sorrow divine and calm thro' thee to me. Give me the steady silence: sea, sky, shore, Earth and her simple idylls!—All is gone! All shall return, but be the same no more.Give me, O wonder! still thy dim dark kiss, Cool on my temples, while I bide alone And cling to youth and linger pale for this.