The Collected Poems of Philip Bourke Marston

I, toiling here through many weary days,
Turn from the extreme bitterness of pain,
As turns a journeying sailor from the main,
In middle sea to rest, a little space,
On some soft island where his hands may raise
'Twixt land and sea a rough and rocky fane,
Whereat his God to worship, ere again
Unto the stormy waves he sets his face.

So, ere I pass, a little yet I turn,
And raise, apart from all, to thee a shrine,
And render homage in these trembling lays,
Which, could they higher rise, and clearer burn,
Might reach a little from my soul to thine,
Not past man's worship, but beyond man's praise.

II.

For, looking downward from thy spirit's height,
Things that we cannot see, to thee are clear;
Music by us unheard, thou yet canst hear;
And, as men read the wonders of the night,
So dost thou read with clear unfailing sight
These hearts of ours, and from thy higher sphere,
Canst see in Spring the Autumn dawning near;
Canst in the darkness see the unborn light;

Canst see how love, ere yet men know its name,
Fed with cool dews of dreams, begins to bud,
Ere yet it break into a blossom bright,
Whose warm and trembling petals shine as flame, —
A flower that fades not when the summer wood
Lies chilled and leafless in the winter's blight.

III.

Sweeter than half-heard music is to one
Who waits, upon a summer's night, and sees
The warm, white moonlight slanting through the trees,
And smiles to think the glad time is begun;
Sadder than, after summer-time is done,
The autumn twilight, when the fitful breeze
Sighs for the year's lost prime and sunny ease, —
So is to me the web thy soul has spun

Of dream-flowers plucked from pale, dim fields of sleep,
Warm with no sun, wet with no rain of ours.
Surely the web was woven well of these,
And, in the streams we know not, did God steep
The opening blossoms, and the full-grown flowers, —
Hopes born of griefs, and joys of memories.

IV.

So end these rhymes that lack the magic wing
Which could alone bear up my thoughts to Thee,
O soul unseen, though not unknown of me;
Yet, as in winter thinking of the spring
Doth seem more near the distant May to bring;
As one who worships prone on bended knee,
Then nearest seems unto his God to be:
So — with like hope — a little while I sing,

And bow in soul, and worship in this rhyme;
And from my land, to-night, I look afar,
Until I almost deem that I can see
The snowy mountains of that northern clime,
In midst whereof, as flames a winter star,
Thy spirit shines in its divinity.

University of Virginia Library

ACROSS SEAS.

I.

II.

III.

IV.