Radclyffe Hall: Verses about Sea

Can nothing last?
No deep, intense emotion?
Have all things passed,
Can nothing last?
'Yes,' sighs the wind,
' My passion for the Ocean
Must always last.'

Is nothing True?
No words of protestation?
Love cries anew
' Is nothing True?'
'Yes,' sobs the sea,
' My endless adoration
For yonder rock is true !

'Will nothing stand
Against the stress of weather?
Storms sweep the land,
Will nothing stand ?
'Yes,' says the rock,
' For God and I together,
We two will stand.'

The sea was witness of the words you said :
She hushed her every tide that she might hear
Your whispered love, and while you bent so near
My bosom, laying down your weary head
To rest thereon—the corals in their bed
Stirred with emotion, shaken as with fear,
And foam grew paler, passionately drear
As some wan smile, upon a face that 's dead.

I took your hand in mine, your living hand !
And pressed it closer, closer in mine own.
A nameless terror shocked me while I scanned
Your ardent face ; there rose a stifled moan
To part my lips; I saw the future stand
Before me, and behold! I was alone.

Along the hills the olives grow.
And almonds bloom in early Spring,
And many are the streams that flow,
And countless are the birds that sing ;
The air is cool with distant snow,
And musical with bells that ring.

Beneath my feet the road winds down
In deepening shadow, far away
To where a little peaceful town
Lies sleeping by the quiet bay ;
A distant sail, now white, now brown,
Shows phantomlike against the day.

While gradually the Eastern skies
Grow flushed and bright, the late stars flee.
And eager clouds appear, and rise
Above the waves expectantly ;
Till lo ! before my wondering eyes.
The great sun steps from out the sea !

At close of June's most burning day,
We took a ship and sailed away :
In mid-Potomac stream sailed we.
To Old Point Comfort by the sea.

The heavy hanging air of dusk
Was thick with scent of fainting musk.
And through the tired willow trees
Stirred never sound or breath of breeze.

So still it was, that from afar
We seemed to hear a falling star,
And every drop we heard, that dript
From off the paddle as it dipped.

The fireflies lit their yellow lamps.
And danced along the marshy damps ;
They skimmed and shot, and skimmed again.
While beetles droned a dance-refrain.

The old ship pushed the mists apart,
And crawled along with throbbing heart,
Pausing from time to time for breath
Beside some jetty, still as death.

The moon rose up all reddish gold.
And lit the swirhng misty fold
Of fog along the river bank,
Where grew the creepers dark and rank.

Sometimes the lonely 'look-out' cried
'All's well': the water swished and sighed
An endless and protesting song,
As stealthily we crept along.

Until at last the wind blew free.
Where the Potomac met the sea ;
And not so very far away
The shores of Old Point Comfort lay.

The world has grown unreal to-day
Far out upon the Zuyder Zee !
We drift towards a mystic isle,
With scarce a breath of wind the while.
I hear the murmur of the tide,
I hear you breathing at my side,
Far out upon the Zuyder Zee.

The drearness of this inland sea!
Doomed thus to lie eternally
A fettered slave, grown old between
The dykes and marshes low and green,
Devoid of wind to stir the deep
Forgotten heart, so long asleep,
Oh! sorrow-ladened Zuyder Zee!

This awful hush engulfing things !
The noon-tide hangs with outspread wings
Above the ship, all motionless.
The penitential sails confess
Their sad inertness, damp and brown,
From silent masts they ripple down
Towards the lifeless Zuyder Zee.

I almost think that you and I
Are floating on a haze of sky,
This is an unknown sphere of dreams,
Or else some region where the beams
Of daylight that have died unblessed
By some kind thought stray seeking rest,
Along the wastes of Zuyder Zee.

How strange to know that youth is ours !
That do we choose a world of flowers
And sunlight waiting to our hand
Is calling for some gladder land,
So easy to attain, yet lo !
We drift amid the mist and woe
Of winter on the Zuyder Zee.

Is there a subtle charm, when sad
Despairing nature makes the glad
Rejoicing spirit pause to think,
Of those dim depths to which may sink
The soul immortal? Where the mind
May grow as sodden as a wind
That dies upon the Zuyder Zee?

When all our loving and our will
To love for ever can't fulfil
Love's promises for age and death?
That like a hushed, unwholesome breath,
From off the marshes in the night
Steals forth, and all our past delight
Is colder than the Zuyder Zee?

The very thought that death is near
Perchance makes life seem doubly dear,
And love more urgent, since they two
May some day fade away, and you
Become a spectral memory,
Devoid of joy ! and what of me
Oh! wise, world-weary Zuyder Zee?

Your endless depth of stark despair
But renders sunlit things more fair,
But makes the craving heart more strong
To grasp its pleasures, short or long,
While yet it is To-day, nor wait
Upon the will of doubtful fate,
Lest all emotion rendered numb
With long suppression should become
As you are, soulless Zuyder Zee !