Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward: Verses about Sea

My dreams are of the Sea.
All night the living waters stepped
Stately and steadily. All night the wind
Conducted them. With forehead high, a rock,
Glittering with joy, stood to receive the shock
Of the flood-tide. I saw it in the mind
Of sleep and silence. When I woke, I wept.


My dreams are of the Sea.
But oh, it is the Sea of Glass!
I met that other tide as I desired.
Alone, the rock and I leaned to the wave,-
A foolish suicide, that scooped its grave
Within the piteous sand. Now I am tired.
It died and it was buried. Let me pass.

Old, old,
Centuries old,
How old a love is, who can say?
It is an ancient day
Since thou and I wert wed.
The orbéd sky bent down,
A fiery, scornful crown,
Not craven pale as now,
Live-red to bind thy brow,
Crested red and lonely
Only
To coronet thy head.


Thou, I,
Beneath His eye,
Existed solitary, grand.
O only life! the life of sea and land!
All puny heritage
Of puny love and loss.
Came mimic after us;
Our mighty wedlock meant
More than their supplement.
Ere these, we perfect were,
And are,
In pain and privilege.


My own true-hearted!
Since first He parted
Thee from me,
Behold and see
How dreary, mute,
Bound hand and foot,
Stretched, starved, I lie!
I hear thee stepping by,
And weep to see
Thee yearn to me.
Bound by an awful Will
Forever and forever thou dost move
An awful errand on.
O Love!
Steal up and say,-is there below, above;
In height or depth, or choice or unison,
Of woes a woe like mine,-
To lie so near to thine,
And yet forever and forever to lie still!

One shadow glides from the dumb shore,
And one from every silent sail.
One cloud the averted heavens wear,
A soft mask, thin and frail.


Oh, silver is the lessening rain,
And yellow was the weary drouth.
The reef her warning finger puts
Upon the harbor's mouth.


Her thin, wan finger, stiff and stark,
She holds by night, she holds by day.
Ask, if you will. No answer makes
The sombre, guarded bay.


The fleet, with idle canvas hung,
Like a brute life, sleeps patiently.
The headlights nod across the cliff,
The fog blows out to sea.


There is no color on the tide,
No color on the helpless sky;
Across the beach,-a safe, small sound-
The grass-hid crickets cry.


And through the dusk I hear the keels
Of home-bound boats grate low and sweet.
O happy lights! O watching eyes!
Leap out the sound to greet.


O tender arms that meet and clasp!
Gather and cherish while ye may.
The morrow knoweth God. Ye know
Your own are yours to-day.


Forever from the Gloucester winds
The cries of hungry children start.
There breaks in every Gloucester wave
A widowed woman's heart.

O Sweet!
I kiss thy feet.
It is permitted me
So much to keep of thee,
So much to give to thee.
Reverently
I touch thy dusky garments' hem.
Thy dazzling feet lie bare;
But now the moonlit air,
In hurrying by, did gaze at them.
Who can guess
The temper of a love denied?
See! to my lips I press,-
I press and hide
Thy sweet
Sad feet,
And cover them from sight of all the world.


Till thou and I were riven apart,
Never was it known
By any one
That storms could tear an ocean's heart.
Nor shall it be again
That storms can cause an ocean pain.
But when He said:
'No farther, thus far, shalt thou go;
And here,
In fear,
Shall thy proud waves be stayed,'-
Raging, rebel, and afraid,
What could shore or ocean do?


Fling down thy long loose hair
For a little share
Of the little kiss I still may bring to thee.
O Love! turn unto me!
The hours are short that I may be
Rich though so scantily,
Blest although so broken-hearted.
Sweet my Love! when we are parted,
When unheard orders bid me go
Obedient to an unknown Will,
The pain of pains selects me so,
That I must go, and thou lie still.
While yet my lips may hunger near thy feet,
Turn to me, Sweet!

'That we together may sail,
Just as we used to do.'

Carleton's Ballads

And what if I should be kind?
And what if you should be true?
The old love could never go on,
Just as it used to do.


The wan, white hands of the waves
That smote us swift apart,
Will never enclasp again,
And draw us heart to heart.


The cold, far feet of the tides
That trod between us two,
Can never retrace their steps,
And fall where they used to do.


Oh, well the ships must remember,
That go down to the awful sea,
No keel that chisels the current
Can cut where it used to be.


Not a throb of the gloom or the glory
That stirs in the sun or the rain,
Will ever be that gloom or glory
That dazzled or darkened-again.


Not a wave that stretches its arms,
And yearns to the breast of the shore,
Is ever the wave that came trusting,
And yearning, and loving, before.


The hope that is high as the heavens,
The joy that is keen as pain,
The faith that is free as the morning,
Can die-but can live not again.


And though I should step beside you,
And hand should reach unto hand,
We should walk mutely-stifled-
Ghosts in a breathless land.


And what if I should be kind?
And though you should be true?
The old love could never, never
Love on as it used to do.

The boats bound in across the bar,
Seen in fair colors from afar,
Grown to dun colors strong and near;
Their very shadows seem to fear
The shadows of a week of harms,
The memories of a week's alarms,
And quiver like a happy sigh
As ship and shadow, drifting by,
Glide o'er the harbor's peaceful face,
Each to its Sabbath resting-place.


And some like weary children come,
With sobbing sails, half sick for home;
And some, like lovers' thoughts, to meet
The veiléd shore, spring daring, sweet;
And some reluctant, in the shade,
The great reef dropt, like souls afraid,
Creep sadly in. Against the shore
Ship unto shadow turneth more
And more. Ships, ocean, shadow, shore!
Part not, nor stir forevermore!


My thoughts sail inward silently,
My week-day thoughts, O God, to thee!
Cold fears, evasive like a star,
And hopes whose gayest colors are
Akin to shades of fear. Wild dreams
Whose unimprisoned sweetness seems
To-night a presence like a blame,
A solid presence like a shame:
And faint temptations with held breath
Make room for cares as dark as death,
Give place to broken aims, that sail
Dismasted from some heart-spent gale.


And those come leaping lightly in,
And these crawl laggard, as a sin
Turned shoreward-Godward-ever must.
My soul sits humble in the dust,
Content to think that in His grace
Each care shall find its Sabbath place,
Content to know that, less or more
No sin can harbor near the shore.

I dreamed that same old dream again last night;
You know I told you of it once, and more:
The sun had risen, and looked upon the sea,
And turned his head and looked upon the shore,
As if he never saw the world before.


What mystic, mythic season could it be?
It was October with the heart of May.
How count they time within love's calendar?
Dreaming or waking, I can only say
It was the morning of our wedding-day.


I only know I heard your happy step,
As I sat working on my wedding-day
Within my usual place, my usual task;
You came and took the pen, and laughing, 'Nay!'
You said, 'no more this morning! Come away!'


And I, who had been doing dreamily
Within my dream some fitful thing before,
(My pen and I were both too tired to stop,)
Drew breath,-dropped all my work upon the floor,
And let you lead me mutely to the door,


And out into a place I never saw,
Where little waves came shyly up and curled
Themselves about our feet; and far beyond
As eye could see, a mighty ocean swirled.
'We go,' you said, 'alone into the world.'


But yet we did not go, but sat and talked
Of usual things, and in our usual way;
And now and then I stopped myself to think,-
So hard it is for work-worn souls to play,-
Why, after all it is our wedding-day!


The fisher-folk came passing up and down,
Hither and thither, and the ships sailed by,
And busy women nodded cheerily;
And one from out a little cottage came,
With quiet porches, where the vines hung high,


And wished us joy, and 'When you're tired,' she said,
'I bid you welcome; come and rest with me.'
But she was busy like the rest, and left
Us only out of all the world to be
Idle and happy by the idle sea.


And there were colors cast upon the sea
Whose names I know not, and upon the land
The shapes of shadows that I never saw;
And faintly far I felt a strange moon stand,-
Yet still we sat there, hand in clinging hand,


And talked, and talked, and talked, as if it were
Our last long chance to speak, or you to me
Or I to you, for this world or the next;
And still the fisherwomen busily
Passed by, and still the ships sailed to the sea.


But by and by the sea, the earth, the sky,
Took on a sudden color that I knew;
And a wild wind arose and beat at them.
The fisherwomen turned a deadly hue,
And I, in terror, turned me unto you,


And wrung my wretched hands, and hid my face.
'O, now I know the reason, Love,' I said,
'We've talked, and talked, and talked the livelong day,
Like strangers, on the day that we were wed;
For I remember now that you were dead!'


I woke afraid: around the half-lit room
The broken darkness seemed to stir and creep;
I thought a spirit passed before my eyes;
The night had grown a thing too dread for sleep,
And human life a lot too sad to weep.


Beneath the moon, across the silent lawn,
The garden paths gleamed white,-a mighty cross
Cut through the shadowed flowers solemnly:
Like heavenly love escaped from earthly dross,
Or heavenly peace born out of earthly loss.


And wild my uncalmed heart went questioning it:
'Can that which never has been ever be?'
The solemn symbol told me not, but lay
As dumb before me as Eternity,
As dumb as you are when you look at me.