Chapter VI: The After-Calm

What is that color on the sea,
Dotted by the white sails of ships?
It is blue, you say. We know it not, and yet
We know the blue of violet,

The hue of mid-day skies,
And the sapphire of young children's eyes;
But _that_ we do not know--unless it be
The pallor of dead lips.

That band upon the sea?
A sash of green that in a moment's time
Becomes a girdle of wrought gold,
Held by a silver clasp of surge.
It cannot be.
That green is now a belt of slime,
And now--an iron-knotted scourge,
And now--the form of some anguineal fold.

That crimson core with sepia fringe,
And orange tints between,
Shows how the sun's white alchemy
In vain attempt is seen
To paint a pansy on the sea.

That red is not the pansy's red,
Nor what the garden poppy shows,
Nor the vermilion that is spread
Upon the pastel of the rose,
But some deep smear that has its name
In the sprawled characters of the flood,
A splash of fire, a troubled flame,
That takes its color from the blood
Of one who through the night had died,
Breaking his body on the tide.