Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward: Verses about Water

Great God!
Behold, I lie
Beneath Thine awful eye,
As the sea beneath the sky.


My God,
What hope abides?
Thine unknown purpose rides
The torrent of my tides.


Dear God,
I am not a shore, or hill,
An ocean must take still
The colors of the heavens' will.


Choose, God.
Though days be blue, or gold,
Though sorrows new, or cold,
Though purple joy be there,
Or gray of old despair,
Give but Thyself to me,
And let me be Thy sea.
Thy storms have had their way.
I pray now not to pray.

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.

The tide is rising, rising
Out of the infinite sea;
From ripple, to wave, to billow,
Past beryl and gold and crimson,
A prism of perfect splendor;
What shall the white surf be?


The sacred tide is rising,
Rising for you and me.
Defiant across the breaker,
Wave unto wave must answer,
The sea to the shore will follow;
When shall the great flood be?


The tide must turn falling, falling
Back to the awful sea.
Thus far shalt thou go, no farther.
The color sinks to the shadow,
The pæan sobs into silence,
Where shall the ebb-line be?


By the weeds left blazing, beating
Like heart-throbs of the sea,
By the law of the land and the ocean,
By the Hand that holdeth the torrent,
I summon the tide eternal
To flow for you and me!

'All the rivers run into the sea.'
Like the pulsing of a river,
The motion of a song,
Wind the olden words along
The tortuous turnings of my thoughts whenever
I sit beside the sea.


'All the rivers run into the sea.'
O you little leaping river,
Laugh on beneath your breath!
With a heart as deep as death,
Strong stream, go patient, grave, and hasting never,-
I sit beside the sea.


'All the rivers run into the sea.'
Why the passion of a river?
The striving of a soul?
Calm the eternal waters roll
Upon the eternal shore. At last, whatever
Seeks it-finds the sea.


'All the rivers run into the sea.'
O thou bounding, burning river,
Hurrying heart! I seem
To know (so one knows in a dream)
That in the waiting heart of God forever,
Thou too shalt find the sea.

All the day the light lies dreaming, dreaming,
Quietly on the lea.
All the day the ships go sailing, sailing,
Over an unseen sea.


Sentient, strong, the hill lies couching, crawling,
Pressed close against the sky,
Pierced by lances quivering, sharp, unerring,-
The thin masts drifting by.


All the night the breakers, distant, daring,
Sing straight a solemn song;
Day and night from unguessed ocean greatness
Great winds are borne along.


Night and day my eyes are gazing, straining,
Filled full of land-bound tears.
My land-bound heart is full of little sorrows
And full of little fears.


O happy souls! that soft go sailing, sailing,
Over an unknown sea,
Send some signal of your wafting, wandering,
Across the hills to me!


Across the cruel hills, that stern and steadfast
Sever you and me,
Tell me sometimes of your peaceful, blessed
Life upon the sea!

CAPE ANN, SEPTEMBER SURF. 1882.

White fire upon the gray-green waste of waves,
The low light of the breaker flares. Ah, see!
Outbursting on a sky of steel and ice,
The baffled sun stabs wildly at the gale.
The water rises like a god aglow,
Who all too long hath slept, and dreamed too sure,
And finds his goddess fled his empty arms.
Silent, the mighty cliff receives at last
That rage of elemental tenderness,
The old, omnipotent caress she knows.
Yet once the solid earth did melt for her
And, pitying, made retreat before her flight;
Would she have hidden her forever there?
Or did she, wavering, linger long enough
To let the accustomed torrent chase her down?
Over the neck of the gorge,
I cling. Lean desperately!
He who feared a chasm's edge
Were never the one to see
The torment and the triumph hid
Where the deep surges be.
I pierce the gulf; I sweep the coast
Where wide the tide swings free;
I search as never soul sought before.
There is not patience enough in all the shore,
There is not passion enough in all the sea,
To tell my love for thee.

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!

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!

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.