Sea Poems Part 10

All day long in the spindrift swinging, Bird of the sea! bird of the sea!

How I would that I had thy winging-- How I envy thee!

How I would that I had thy spirit, So to careen, joyous to cry, Over the storm and never fear it!

Into the night that hovers near it!

Calm on a reeling sky!

All day long, and the night, unresting!

Ah! I believe thy every breath Means that life's best comes ever breasting Peril and pain and death!

AFTER THEIR PARTING

(_A Woman Speaks_)

You know that rock on a rocky coast, Where the moon came up, a ruined ghost, Distorted until her shape almost Seemed breaking?

Came up like a phantom silently And dropped her shroud on the red night sea, Then walked, a spectral mystery, Unwaking?

You know how, sudden, there came a change, When she had left the sea's low range, Its lurid crimson, stark and strange, Behind her?

How, sudden, her silver self shone thro, Tranquilly free of the earth's stained hue, And found a way where the clouds were few To bind her?

You know this? Then go back some day, When I have gone the moonless way, To that dark rock whereon we lay And waited; And when the moon has arisen free, Your soiling doubt shall fall from me, And eased of unrest your heart shall be, And sated.

A WORD'S MAGIC

Do you remember Etajima, And how, upon a moon-fogged sea, As ghostly as ever a tide shall be, We pa.s.sed an island silently?

And how a low voice in the gloom Of the temple pine-trees leaning there Said _sayonara_ to one somewhere Unseen in the shadow-haunted air?

Just _sayonara_: but it seemed The soul of all farewells that night, The sigh of all withdrawn delight, The sound of love's last rapture-rite.

And now, after long years, it comes Again from isles of memory To bring once more to birth in me The breath of all lost witchery.

Yes, one low word of parting, now Echoing, thro the fog of years, Has touched my heart with beauty's tears, And youth thro all things reappears.

SEA RHAPSODY

(_Out of Hong-kong_)

Never again, never again Did I hope to breathe such joy!

The sea is blue and the winds halloo Up to the sun "Ahoy!"

"Ahoy!" they shout and the mists they rout From the mountain-tops go streaming In happy play where the gulls sway, And a million waves are gleaming!

And every wave, billowing brave, Is tipped with a wild delight.

A garden of isles around me smiles, Bathed in the blue noon light, The rude brown bunk of the fis.h.i.+ng junk Seems fair as a sea-king's palace: O wine of the sky the G.o.ds have spilt Out of its crystal chalice!

For wine is the wind, wine the sea, Wine for the sinking spirit, To lift it up from the cling of clay Into high Bliss--or near it!

So let me drink till I cease to think, And know with a sting of rapture That joy is yet as wide as the world For men, at last, to capture!

IN AN ORIENTAL HARBOUR

All the s.h.i.+ps of the world come here, Rest a little, then set to sea; Some ride up to the waiting pier, Some drop anchor beyond the quay.

Some have funnels of blue and black, (Some come once but come not back!) Some have funnels of red and yellow, Some--O war!--have funnels of gray.

All the s.h.i.+ps of the world come here, s.h.i.+ps from every billow's foam; Fruiter and oiler, pirateer, Liner and lugger and tramp a-roam.

Some are scented of palm and pine, (Some are fain for the Pole's far clime).

Some are scented of soy and senna, Some--ah me!--are scented of home.

All the s.h.i.+ps of the world come here, Day and night there is sound of bells, Seeking the port they calmly steer, Clearing the port they ring farewells.

Under the sun or under the stars (Under the light of swaying spars), Under the moon or under morning Do they swing, as the tide swells.

All the s.h.i.+ps of the world come here, Rest a little and then are gone, Over the crystal planet-sphere Swept, thro every season, on.

Swept to every cape and isle (Every coast of cloud or smile), Swept till over them sweeps the sorrow Of their last sea-dawn.

UNDER THE SKY

Far out to sea go the fis.h.i.+ng junks, With all sails set, The tide swings gray and the clouds sway, The wind blows wet; Blows wet from the long coast lying dim As if mist-born.

Far out they sail, as the stars pale, The stars of morn.

Far out to sea go the fis.h.i.+ng junks, And I who pa.s.s Upon a deck that is vaster reck No more, alas, Of all their life, or they of mine, Than comes to this,-- That under the sky we live and die, Like all that is.

A SONG FOR HEALING

(_On the South Seas_)

When I return to the world again, The world of fret and fight, To grapple with G.o.dless things and men, In battle, wrong or right, I will remember this--the sea, And the white stars hanging high, And the vessel's bow Where calmly now I gaze to the boundless sky.