University of Virginia Library

I

Let them not dream that they have known the ocean
Who have but seen him where his locks are spread
'Neath purple cliffs, on curving beaches golden;
Who have but wandered where his spume is shed
On those dear Isles where thou and I were bred,
Far Britain, and far Ierne; and who there,
Dallying about his porch, have but beholden
The fringes of his power, and skirts of his commotion,
And culled his voiceful shells, and plucked his ravelled hair.

II

Beloved! the life of one brief moon hath sped,
No more than one brief moon, since thou and I
To chilly England waved a warm good-bye.
On glooming tides the great ship rode,
The great ship with her great live load.
The famous galleons of old Spain,
The prows that were King Philip's pride,
Had seemed, against her mighty side,
Things of derision and disdain.
Out from Mersey's flashing mouth,
In a night of cloud and dolorous rain,
Darkly, darkly bore she south.
In a morn of rising wind and wave
She rounded the isle of Old Unrest,
And out into open Atlantic drave,
Till all the rage of all the wild south-west
Unmasked its thundering batteries 'gainst her populous breast.

III

Many have sung of the terrors of Storm;
I will make me a song of its beauty, its graces of hue and form;
A song of the loveliness gotten of Power,
Born of Rage in her blackest hour,
When never a wave repeats another,
But each is unlike his own twin brother,
Each is himself from base to crown,
Himself alone as he clambers up,
Himself alone as he crashes down;—
When the whole sky drinks of the sea's mad cup,
And the ship is thrilled to her quivering core,
But amidst her pitching, amidst her rolling,
Amidst the clangour and boom and roar,
Is a Spirit of Beauty all-controlling!
For here in the thick of the blinding weather
The great waves gather themselves together,
Shake out their creases, compose their folds,
As if each one knew that an eye beholds.
And look! there rises a shape of wonder,
A moving menace, a mount of gloom,
But the moment ere he breaks asunder
His forehead flames into sudden bloom,
A burning rapture of nameless green,
That never on earth or in heaven was seen,
Never but where the midmost ocean
Greets and embraces the tempest in primal divine emotion.
And down in a vale of the sea, between
Two roaring hills, is a wide smooth space,
Where the foam that blanches the ocean's face
Is woven in likeness of filmiest lace,
Delicate, intricate, fairy-fine,
Wrought by the master of pure design,
Storm, the matchless artist, and lord of colour and line.

IV

And what of the ship, the great brave vessel,
Buffeted, howled at, patient, dumb,
Built to withstand, and manned to wrestle,
Fashioned to strive and to overcome?
She slackens her pace, her athlete speed,
Like a bird that checks his ardent pinion;
She husbands her strength for the day of her need,
But she thrusts right on through her salt dominion;
She staggers to port, she reels to starboard,
But weathers the storm and lives it down;
And one chill morning beholds her harboured
Under the lee of the great chill town.

V

New York! a city like a chessboard made,
Whereon the multitudinous pawns are swayed
Neither by Knight nor puissant Queen,
And bow not unto Castle or King,
Yet hither and thither are moved as though they obeyed,
Half loath, some power half seen,
Some huge, voracious, hundred-headed thing,
Armed with a million tentacles, whereby
He hooks and holds his victims till they die.
There did we tarry, dearest! But one day
There came on us a longing to go forth,
No matter whither, so 'twere far away!
Then from the snarl and bite of the sharp North
To Florida's sweet orange-flaming shore,
Through forests and savannahs vast we sped,
And found a sea so fair and strange, we said—
“We have but dreamed of splendour heretofore.”
For all the sky-line was an emerald ring
Of such deep glow as baulks imagining;
And all the tide within it, streak on streak,
Was one extravagant revel and freak
Of amber and amethyst, azure and smouldering red,
With every hue that is the child of these
Dancing at noon on the fantastic seas.

VI

So for a little while we roamed
In a golden, gorgeous land o'erdomed
With throbbing and impassioned skies;
A palmy land of dusky faces
Meek before the mastering races—
Ebony faces and ivory teeth,
And liquid, kindly, patient eyes,
With laughter lurking underneath.
Then we took ship and landed here
In old Havana. The old year,
Sinking fast, hath not yet died,
And here we have spent our Christmas-tide,
And once in a while can just remember
It is not August, but December.
And here last night (Canst thou believe
That five days hence 'twill be New Year's Eve?)
Here, in this Yule of flaming weather,
Hotter than solstice on English heather,
There broke from out the unfathomed sky
Lightning such as thou and I
Never beheld unsheathed in the fervour of mid-July.
All night long, with many an elvish antic,
Violet fire lit up the dazzled land;
All this morn the weight of all the Atlantic
Fell in thunder on the coral strand.
Come—for not yet subsides the mighty roar:
Come—the whole sea invites us to the shore.

VII

Ah, dear one! can it be
That thou and I have eaten of that herb
Whereof 'tis writ that whosoever tastes
Can ne'er again his lust of wandering curb,
But day and night he hastes
From sea to land, and on from land to sea,
With vain desires that beckon and perturb
His heart unrestingly?
Nay, we have roved just far enough to know
That we possess too little wealth to rove,
Being poor in lucre, though
Exceeding rich in love.
Yet travel hath taught us lessons we scarce had learned in repose;
Our friends have been proven our friends, and our foes have been proven our foes.
And having seen and pondered much, some visions we surrender,
And return a little weary, for a little taste of ease,
From tempest and from hurricane, and a land of light and splendour,
And the odorous thrones of summer in the midst of the seas.