Wide, from wave to wave rekindling in Breaks and brightens, laughs and les- Shall not joys endure that perish? Yea, saith dawn, though night say nay: Life on life goes out, but very life enkindles everywhere Light that leaps and runs and revels through the springing flames of spray. Friend, were life no more than this is, ON THE VERGE 1884. HERE begins the sea that ends not till Gazing hence, we see the water that grows iron round the Pole, From the shore that hath no shore be yond it set in all the sea. Sail on sail along the sea-line fades and wings of mews that plunge and screa slays and dies: and scarce they see" More than motes that thronged ar trembled in the brief noon's brea and beam. Some with crying and wailing, with notes like sound of bells that! 1. Some with sighing and laughing, se with words that blessed and made s whole, Passed, and left us, and we know not what they were, nor what were we Would we know, being mortal? Never breath of answering whisper stole From the shore that hath no shore be yond it set in all the sea. Shadows, would we question darkress? Ere our eves and brows be fanned Round with airs of twilight, washed with dews from sleep's eternal stream, Would we know sleep's guarded secret? Ere the fire consume the brand, Would it know if yet its ashes may requicken? yet we deem Surely man may know, or ever night unyoke her starry team, What the dawn shall be, or if the dawn shall be not: yea, the scroll Would we read of sleep's dark scripta, pledge of peace or doom of dole. Ah, but here man's heart leaps, yearning toward the gloom with venturous ge Though his pilot eye behold nor bay harbor, rock nor shoal, From the shore that hath no shore b yond it set in all the sea. Friend, who knows if death indeed have life or life have death for goal? Day nor night can tell us, nor may stas declare nor skies unroll What has been from everlasting, or f aught shall alway be. Silence answering only strikes response reverberate on the soul From the shore that hath no shore beyond it set in all the sea. 1864. Not the dawn, ere yet the imprisoning night has half released her, More desires the sun's full face of cheer, than we, Well as yet we love the strength of the iron-tongued north-easter, Yearn for wind to meet us as we front the sea. All thy ways are good, O wind, and all the world should fester, Were thy fourfold godhead quenched, or stilled thy strife: Yet the waves and we desire too long the deep south-wester, Whence the waters quicken shoreward, clothed with life. Yet the field not made for ploughing save of keels nor harrowing Save of storm-winds lies unbrightened by thy breath: Banded broad with ruddy samphire glow the sea-banks narrowing Westward, while the sea gleams chill and still as death. Sharp and strange from inland sounds thy bitter note of battle, Blown between grim skies and waters Whence her heart of hearts shall kindle and her soul recover Sense of love too keen to lie for love's sake still. Let thy strong south-western music sound, and bid the billows Brighten, proud and glad to feel thy Scourge and kiss Sting and soothe and sway them, bowed as aspens bend or willows, Yet resurgent still in breathless rage of bliss. All to-day the slow sleek ripples hardly bear up shore-ward. Charged with sighs more light than laughter, faint and fair, Like a wooiland lake's weak wavelets lightly lingering forward, [air. Soft and listless as the slumber-stricken Be the sunshine bared or veiled, the sky superb or shrouded, Still the waters. lax and languid, chafed and foiled. Keen and thwarted, pale and patient. clothed with fire or clouded, Vex their heart in vain, or sleep like serpents coiled. Thee they look for, blind and baffled, wan with wrath and weary, Blown for ever back by winds that rock the bird: Winds that seamews breast subdue the sea, and bid the dreary Waves be weak as hearts made sick with hope deferred. Let thy clarion sound from westward, let the south bear token How the glories of thy godhead sound and shine: Bid the land rejoice to see the landwind's broad wings broken, Bid the sea take comfort, bid the world be thine. Half the world abhors thee beating back the sea, and blackening Heaven with fierce and woful change of fluctuant form: All the world acclaims thee shifting sail again, and slackening Cloud by cloud the close-reefed cordage of the storm. Sweeter fields and brighter woods and lordlier hills than waken Here at sunrise never hailed the sun and thee: Turn thee then, and give them comfort, shed like rain and shaken Far as foam that laughs and leaps along the sea. 1889. IN TIME OF MOURNING ** RETURN,” we dare not as we fain Would cry from hearts that yearn: Love dares not bid our dead again Return. O hearts that strain and burn As fires fast fettered burn and strain ! Bow down, lie still, and learn. The heart that healed all hearts of pain Its echoes, while the stars remain, A SEQUENCE OF SONNETS ON THE DEATH OF ROBERT BROWNING THE clearest eyes in all the world they read With sense more keen and spirit of sight more true Than burns and thrills in sunrise, when the dew Flames, and absorbs the glory round it shed, As they the light of ages quick and dead, Closed now, forsake us: yet the shaft that slew Can slay not one of all the works we knew, Nor death discrown that many-laurelled head. The works of words whose life seems lightning wrought. And moulded of unconquerable thought, And quickened with imperishable flame, Stand fast and shine and smile, assured that nought May fade of all their myriad-moulded fame, Nor England's memory clasp not Browning's name. Death, what hast thou to do with one for whom Time is not lord, but servant? What least part Of all the fire that fed his living heart, Of all the light more keen than sundawn's bloom That lit and led his spirit, strong as doom And bright as hope, can aught thy breath may dart Quench? Nay, thou knowest he knew thee what thou art, A shadow born of terror's barren womb, But he to him, who knows what gift is thine, Death? Hardly may we think or hope when we Pass likewise thither where to-night is he, Beyond the irremeable outer seas that shine And darken round such dreams as half divine Some sunlit harbor in that starless sea Where gleams no ship to windward or to lee, To read with him the secret of thy shrine. There too, as here, may song, delight, and love, The nightingale, the sea-bird, and the dove, Fulfil with joy the splendor of the sky Till all beneath wax bright as all above: But none of all that search the heavens, and try No serpent sleeping in some dead soul's tomb, No song-bird singing from some live soul's height, But he might hear, interpret, or illume With sense invasive as the dawn of doom. What secret thing of splendor or of shade Surmised in all those wandering ways wherein Man, led of love and life and death and sin, Strays, climbs, or cowers, allured, absorbed, afraid, Might not the strong and sunlike sense invade Of that full soul that had for aim to win Light, silent over time's dark toil and din, Life, at whose touch death fades as dead things fade? O spirit of man, what mystery moves in thee That he might know not of in spirit, and see The heart within the heart that seems to strive, The life within the life that seems to be, And hear through all thy storms that whirl and drive. The living sound of all men's souls alive? He held no dream worth waking: so he said, He who stands now on death's triumphal steep, Awakened out of life wherein we sleep And dream of what he knows and sees, being dead. But never death for him was dark or dread: "Look forth" he bade the soul, and fear not. Weep, All ye that trust not in his truth, and keep Vain memory's vision of a vanished head As all that lives of all that once was he Save that which lightens from his word : but we, Who, seeing the sunset-colored waters roll, Yet know the sun subdued not of the |