 | Bellerophôn |  |
141
THE HALCYONS.
“And birds of calm sat brooding o'er the charmèd wave.”
I
The storm-wind has heaped cruel snow on the breaker,That sweeps in dread folds the white dead to the shore;
The hoar sea-blast no longer can wake her,
Who waited the dead she waits no more.—
A refluent wave round her bosom whitened,
A wave from the sea brought his cold corpse back;
With meeting of love bitter death-waves have brightened
Their wild track.
II
Dead love to love;—they may not be parted,The chill, pressing waves have no power to part;
And even the whirlwind, careless-hearted,
Feels, as it passes, the throb of a heart.
Death with a ring of wild surf has wed them;
Dead lips to lips they have kissed in Death's sleep;
The scattered foam-flowers and the billows that shed them
Fade and weep.
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III
The deep cold sky is rayed with the dawning;The stars unchain their orbs from the night;
Like a dark flower fading, unloved of morning,
The darkness scatters its leaves in the light.
And white day broods on the white of ocean,
As the sea-bird broods on the ocean-breast,
And the winds lay the waves with a lulling motion
To their rest.
IV
Autumn stays her hands in their woodland reaving,The cornlands stir not one brown-ripe stem;
While sleep's pale hand, still-fingered, is weaving
In the day's loose hair, night's anadem.
Her eyes take its rippling life from the river,
Her hand stills the plains of the heaving grass;
Through the air's deep calm the slight sunbeam-quiver
Dare not pass.
V
Sleep lays her touch on the curling billow,And smooths down its curves to a cradle-bed;
The love that sought love on the ocean-pillow
Can know no death, though white as the dead.
—Two fair birds rock on the waves together,
As close as the rocking blue can bring;
And the waters lift not one soft light feather
From their wing.
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VI
They sprang from their sad cold death, with the springingOf pale sweet dawn from the chill fair foam;
And the sea round their strange new life is clinging,—
The ocean must be their new love's home.
And in winter the waves to rest are charmèd,
The halycon's brood is their bosom's care;
While the wind and tempest by sleep are calmèd
Everywhere.
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