Chapter II

O'erhead, the iridescence of the stars,
Ray blending softly with refulgent ray;
Below, above the harbor's hidden bars,
The crumbling iridescence of the spray.

Before, a beacon flashing level lines,
Seemingly poised upon the far sea-verge;
Behind, the night wind in the oaks and pines,
Crooning in answer to the crooning surge.

DAWN, THE HARVESTER

The purple sky has blanched to blue
With freaks and streaks of rose and fawn,
While on the rolling meads of sea
Gleam the gold footsteps of the Dawn.

What harvest, think you, will he find
Whither he sets his feet to roam?
Upon that boundless beryl plain
Only the lilies of the foam!

THE LILAC SEA

A cool wind took me by the hand
And led me on beguilingly,
Until before me, broad and bland,
Shimmered the lilac sea.

Great gulls, with mauve upon their wings,
And cries that lingered hauntingly,
Hovered, with graceful flutterings,
Above the lilac sea.

The curving shore-line had the gleam
Of amethyst; it seemed to me
The ships were all like ships of dream
Upon the lilac sea.

And naught was real, or near or far,
And yet I have the memory
Of twilight, and the vesper star,
Hung o'er the lilac sea.

A SAILOR AMID THE HILLS

What does he hear in dreams? The surging wind,
Its long-drawn cadence, its wild harmony,
A mighty harp of infinite strings designed,
Whose sound to him seems sweet immeasurably?
Nay, nay, but through the spaces of his mind,
Plangent or pleading, loud or low-defined,
The ever-haunting murmur of the sea!

SUMMER BY THE SEA

This is a song of summer by the sea,
Of surge-profundos chanted o'er and o'er;
Of ancient wrath and immemorial glee,
And of the ships that sailed and come no more.

This is a song of summer by the sea,
Of half-forgotten runes made long ago,
Of moon-wrought marvel and of mystery,
Of glamor--of the glow and after-glow.

This is a song of summer by the sea,
Of subtleties of change, of strange unrest;
Of dreams unfathomable that form and flee
Like drifts of mist above the ocean's breast.

DUSK AT SEA

Dusk, like a moth of violet wing, descends
Upon the beryl bosom of the sea,
And in the sky's serene immensity,
Where the impalpable rose of sunset blends
With pearl and purple, shine the sailor's friends,
God's blessed beacons twinkling timorously,
Then brighter, each in its divine degree,
To where the enrapt range of vision ends.

When dusk droops dark o'er life's uncertain seas,
Closing our day, deep-shadowing the sun,
And we go forth across death's pathless foam,
May we have stars more stedfast e'en than these,--
Burning above, for us to gaze upon,
Both light and guide on the long journey home.

THE SPEECH OF THE SEA

All yesterday the sea was sapphire fair,
And the waves told, with little rippling glees,
Of ships that sailed, and then returned to bear
Their golden argosies.

But ah, to-day the sea is ashen gray,
And ceaselessly has sobbed unto the shore
Of those ill-fated barques that sailed away
And came again no more!

NIGHT BY THE SEA

I woke in the black watches of the night
And heard the low intoning of the main,
A muffled heart-beat, an unceasing strain
Of music keyed to dolor and delight.
Now sorrow seemed ascendent, now the height
Of rapture beat in the sublime refrain,
Until the whole world's happiness and pain
Had echoed utterance while the dark took flight.

Then in the sound of that reiterant surge
I marked my own life's flux of bliss and woe--
Grief's long drawn sigh and joy's exultant call;
Till borne by dreams beyond the vast sea verge
I touched those shores the blest immortals know
Where youth and love have triumph over all.

AUTUMN BY THE SEA

Still on the sand and shingle gleams the sun;
Still an unclouded heaven arches o'er;
And still the languid billows roll and run
Down all the lengths of shore.

Still there are hints of summer in the air,
A sense of restfulness, of rapt repose;
And from remote sea gardens, lush and fair,
Rich attars like the rose.

Still a soft haze of delicate hyacinth
Broods o'er the sky-line, floating faint and far;
Still on the edge of night's vast labyrinth
Shines the clear vesper-star.

Soon, all too soon, the spindrift and the spume,
The legions of the surge that fleetly form;
The gray, illimitable wastes of gloom--
The thunderous caves of storm!

MIST AT SEA

The sea was mist-enwreathed at morn,
A void unspeakably forlorn;
Yet from the seeming barren gloom
Beauty, the dream of the world, was born.

A sudden wafture of wind breath,
And lo, sun glories none gainsaith!
Thus shall the wings of the soul emerge
White from the chrysalis of death.

A SEA SCENE

From rim to shimmering rim the sea
Is burnished like chalcedony.

The waves that set their lips to land
Scarce make a murmur on the sand.

The ships appear to poise between
Two voids of opalescent sheen.

Aye, here eternal calm seems set
In bland beatitude, and yet

A single potent hour, aye, less,
Can change this placid loveliness,

And cause, where life smiles fair and fain,
The raging demon death to reign!

MOONRISE BY THE SEA

Over the sea-rim peered the pallid moon
Out of a woven shroud
Of twilight purple, while their mighty tune
The breakers thundered loud.

No comrade star, only the mystery
Of that pale orb whose fire
Through immemorial nights has seemed to be
Fulfilled of dim desire.

And while its wan light drenched the foam-hid coasts,
To the low south wind's sigh
Methought the sad innumerable hosts
Of lovers dead went by;

And I was whelmed with sadness, with the sense
Of the immutable pathos of the years,
And how the sum of all love's opulence
Must be obscured by tears!

A SEA SONG

Dolphins under and sea-gulls over
The surge and shift of the dipping tide,
And you, my rover, my blithe sea-rover,
Sailing the path of the undenied.

In dreams I follow you, O my rover,
Wide, for the ways of the sea are wide;
Come back, come back when the voyage is over,--
Back to the heart of the long denied!

A SYMPHONY OF THE SEA

(GLOZE ROYAL)

_The surges sing in ceaseless monotone
The songs and sagas of the long-ago;
Many and mournful are the memories blown
Across the tireless tides that ebb and flow._

Lo, he who walks beside the wide sea-shore,
And sees the waves unbreasted by the oar,
And lets his thoughts repose on days long flown,
Will slowly o'er his dreamy vision feel
A sweetly lingering sadness softly steal,
And he will pause and listen to the moan
The iterant billows make upon the sand;
And all will seem to him a slumber-land,
Where, through the long night-watches dim and lone,
_The surges sing in ceaseless monotone!_

And in his ear the glorious myths of yore
With all the rhythmic burdens that they bore,
Will be retold, replete with joy and woe;--
Ulysses' voyage will ring with epic peal,
And the strange tale of Argo's wandering keel;
Of high-banked Tyrian galleys will he know,
Of Roman triremes, and of many a band
The Vikings led from their far norland strand;--
Stories of strife and love in shine and snow,
_The songs and sagas of the long-ago._

And there will rise within him, more and more,
The strong desire to learn the utmost lore
The great sea holds, that unto none is shown;
And he will cry and bid the deep unseal
Its sacred secrets, and to him reveal
What stern power rules it from what unseen throne.
But no vast shape will show a regnant hand,
Unless, perchance, wan Sorrow by him stand;
From Sorrow's pale, across the seas unsown,
_Many and mournful are the memories blown._

O thou that hast, from decades gone before,
Of bitter and of sweet the fullest store,
Immeasurable sea,--in gloom and glow
Our joy, our terror and our love,--we kneel
At thy dark altar with a vain appeal;
Within thy mighty bosom, far below,
Lie hid the mysteries of Him who planned
The circling spheres that wheel at His command;--
Ah, Sea of Life, to one sure port we go
_Across the tireless tides that ebb and flow!_

End of Project Gutenberg's From The Lips of the Sea, by Clinton Scollard