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

XV

I STOOD upon the old Earth's breast and gazedTo where the seaward sand was gray with brine, And heard a song-bird weeping in a pine, Beneath the iron heaven, bent and crazed. The sea was like an eye that death had glazed; Amid gray light blown round the ragged marge The fallen sun hung lustreless and large And one thin trace of lifeless waters blazed. I strove to feel God's pity for His men, As, in the Galilean dawn, the love Of Jesu widened on the human ken:— In vain! I watched my fated evening go Heart-broken beyond tears and round me move The strength and sorrow of the life I know.