Chapter V

The tameless tides, unresting, seethe; I rest me, for He works beneath; Peace! peace! the toiling waters breathe.

Peace, healing peace, in murmuring main, In brooding sky fanned by lone crane! The sunbeams bicker in the Lane--

Peace on the lighter's falling sail! Peace on the ships that breast the gale! And peace in human hearts that fail!

THE STORMY PETREL.

Fair hero, brave hero of sea--
The sea in its darkness of wrath!
I run down the breaker with thee,
I mount the next in its path.

Our hearts beat together, charmed one,
Lift their wings as fearless as free,
Ride the gloom as if 'twere the sun
Gold-bridled for you and for me.

Summer rain, the cold drifting sleet
That whistles as spiteful as hail!
A roadstead, the billows that fleet
Under the black lash of the gale!

We laugh at their seething, their roar,
Draw our breath full in their face;
We have wings, we know we can soar,--
Your secret and mine in embrace!

(Wings, wings, the soul of our life!
Outspread they victory tell,--
Upliftings amid gulfs of strife,
Wafts of heaven that keep us from hell!)

Brave hero, winged hero of sea--
The sea with black tempest in breast,
Here we mount on the breakers, free,
Soon to soar into calm, into rest!

OBLIVION.

I.

The all-devouring sea! I said,-- While looking on the green- and red- Ribbed rocks a-tilt that flank Sharp's Head:

The diary of the rain cloud driven To yield again its spoil by heaven, The west wind serving the replevin--

Notes of the ocean's teeming floor, The carven shell, the seaweed's spore, And ripple-marks of tidal shore--

Vast tablets of the world of eld, A mighty Bodleian unspelled, By ravine into dust compelled!

The hills are fated to their fall. Upon the great, upon the small, Oblivion drops her raven pall.

II.

And then I thought: The form and mass May baffle ken of eye and glass, And yet the record may not pass.

Tittle and jot, where all seems nil, A finer form in form may still Wait touch of that which doth fulfil.

III.

The liquid air, unseen, unheard, Writes in an everlasting word The wing-beats of the hasting bird.

The sweet light leaves, and bears abroad, A picture of the wide realms trod With wingëd feet gold sandal-shod;

Etching in truth and beauty's grace, Beyond compare of antique vase, On fronting hills the other's face.

Nor shoreless deeps of space debar Blazon on earth of records far, In greening orb or burning star.

IV.

I said: Coined for exchange in mart Of purblind men with leaden heart, This word Oblivion on life's chart!

Deft science' balance now prevails-- This simulacrum in the scales, The verdict to the counter nails.

V.

And then, distraught by onward sweep Of meditation long and deep, I sought me out a place to weep--

O soul, may not thy leaves, I mused, Stirred by death's shock through all diffused, Reveal thy story unconfused,

Clear traced by thought's all-subtle beam-- A quickened palimpsest agleam, Re-orient out of dusk and dream!

SEA MUSIC.

(_For dramatic orchestration._)

I.

Fleecy white waters, Shorn by the tempest, Wrathful and doomful Rolling to land!

Naked and lustrous, Fiercest of smiters, Straight for the stern cliffs, Iron to steel!

Shock unto shock calls, Boom answers boom, Roars the huge tide-loom, Thunder and storm!

Torn are the vast webs Woven of tumult, Flung to the cloud-rack, Tatters of sound!