 | Benoni |  |
197
GLAUCUS.
Thought is away—I will not try to think:I'll slide from sounding slopes of wakefulness,
Down down unconscious to the sedgy marge
Of sleep, where never one poor leaf shall thrill
Its feeble circles o'er the sensitive smooth
Blank of my spirit—not one weak memory
Or whisper'd wandering remnant of a sound
Ceased long ago, shall drone a doubtful life
Thro' the utter silence: As young bathers plunge
Their warm, impassion'd limbs intently down
Full thro' the clear cold sluice, and, pressing up,
Fresh lucid water lays awhile the bloom
Of their soft faces, and upbursting round
In cool still gush thro' their wet hair, above
Gurgles and eddies bubbling to the top—
The while with fix'd yet quivering eyes they dart
198
Into the deep opaque: so will I pierce
Far thro' the shallow monarchy of waves
And sifting tempests—whether of the world
Or our own spirits—and sink, and sink, and soon
Right in the stirless centre of all calm
Faint into dreams: as sunken jewels, shook
Between the chinks of labouring argosies,
Glance down like shooting stars, and couch themselves
In the white sockets of primæval bones,—
All in the opal twilights and green glooms
Of moonlike beauty, rich in native growths
Of grandeur and memorial-wealth, that sleep
There in the nether hollows of the sea.
| Benoni | |