Song-Surf Part 8

AT TINTERN ABBEY

(June, 1903)

O Tintern, Tintern! evermore my dreams Troubled by thy grave beauty shall be born; Thy crumbling loveliness and ivy streams Shall speak to me for ever, from this morn; The wind-wild daws about thy arches drifting, Clouds sweeping o'er thy ruin to the sea, Gray Tintern, all the hills about thee, lifting Their misty waving woodland verdancy!

The centuries that draw thee to the earth In envy of thy desolated charm, The summers and the winters, the sky's girth Of sunny blue or bleakness, seek thy harm.

But would that I were Time, then only tender Touch upon thee should fall as on I sped; Of every pillar would I be defender, Of every mossy window--of thy dead!

Thy dead beneath obliterated stones Upon the sod that is at last thy floor, Who list the Wye not as it lonely moans Nor heed thy Gothic shadows grieving o'er.

O Tintern, Tintern! trysting-place, where never Are wanting mysteries that move the breast, I'll hear thy beauty calling, ah, for ever-- Till sinks within me the last voice to rest!

OH, GO NOT OUT

Oh, go not out upon the storm, Go not, my sweet, to Swalchie pool!

A witch tho' she be dead may charm Thee and befool.

A wild night 'tis! her lover's moan, Down under ooze and salty weed, She'll make thee hear--and then her own!

Till thou shalt heed.

And it will suck upon thy heart-- The sorcery within her cry-- Till madness out of thee upstart, And rage to die.

For him she loved, she laughed to death!

And as afloat his chill hand lay, "Ha, ha! to h.e.l.l I sent his wraith!"

Did she not say?

And from his finger strive to draw The ring that bound him to her spell?

Till on her closed his hand whose awe No curse could quell?

Oh, yea! and tho' she struggled pale, Did it not hold her cold and fast, Till crawled the tide o'er rock and swale, To her at last?

Down in the pool where she was swept He holds her--Oh, go not a-near!

For none has heard her cry but wept And died that year.

HUMAN LOVE

We, spoke of G.o.d and Fate, And of that Life--which some await-- Beyond the grave, "It will be fair," she said, "But love is here!

I only crave thy breast Not G.o.d's when I am dead.

For He nor wants nor needs My little love.

But it may be, if I love thee And those whose sorrow daily bleeds, He knows--and somehow heeds!"

ASh.o.r.e

What are the heaths and hills to me?

I'm a-longing for the sea!

What are the flowers that dapple the dell, And the ripple of swallow-wings over the dusk; What are the church and the folk who tell Their hearts to G.o.d?--my heart is a husk!

(I'm a-longing for the sea!)

Aye! for there is no peace to me-- But on the peaceless sea!

Never a child was glad at my knee, And the soul of a woman has never been mine.

What can a woman's kisses be?-- I fear to think how her arms would twine.

(I'm a-longing for the sea!)

So, not a home and ease for me-- But still the homeless sea!

Where I may swing my sorrow to sleep In a hammock hung o'er the voice of the waves, Where I may wake when the tempests heap And hurl their hate--and a brave s.h.i.+p saves.

(I'm a-longing for the sea!)

Then when I die, a grave for me-- But in the graveless sea!

Where is no stone for an eye to spell Thro' the lichen a name, a date and a verse.

Let me be laid in the deeps that swell And sigh and wander--an ocean hea.r.s.e!

(I'm a-longing for the sea!)

THE VICTORY

See, see!--the blows at his breast, The abyss at his back, The perils and pains that pressed, The doubts in a pack, That hunted to drag him down Have triumphed? and now He sinks, who climbed for the crown To the Summit's brow?

No!--though at the foot he lies, Fallen and vain, With gaze to the peak whose skies He could not attain, The victory is, with strength-- No matter the past!-- He'd dare it again, the dark length, And the fall at last!

AT WINTER'S END

The weedy fallows winter-worn, Where cattle s.h.i.+ver under sodden hay.

The plough-lands long and lorn-- The fading day.

The sullen shudder of the brook, And winds that wring the writhen trees in vain For drearier sound or look-- The lonely rain.