From the Lips of the Sea

The Mist and the Sea

The mist crept in from the sea Out of the void and the vast; And it bore the silver rain A shimmering guest in its train, And many a murmuring strain Of the ships that sailed in the past; Soft as sleep's footfalls be The mist crept in from the sea.

The mist crept in from the sea And folded the length of the shore In the clasp of its mothering arms As though it would shield from harms; And lulled were the loud alarms, And lost was the rage and roar Of the surge, so soothingly The mist crept in from the sea.

The mist crept in from the sea, White, impalpable, strange; Pull of the wafture of wings, Of eerie and eldritch things, Of visions and vanishings Ever in shift and change; Silently, hauntingly, The mist crept in from the sea.

The mist crept in from the sea, And bode for a space, and then It heard the imperious call Of the deep, transcending all, And it knew itself as the thrall Of the world-old master of men, So, still as the dreams that flee, The mist crept back to the sea.

Dirge for a Sailor

Beyond the bourns of time and sleep, Beyond the sway of tides, A voyager o'er death's darksome deep, His ship at anchor rides.

He who from boyhood never knew A garden save the foam, Whose only rooftree was the blue, At last has found a home.

And what more fit than that the wave He loved through life to stem Should sing above his green sea grave This sailor's requiem!

Bag-pipes at Sea

Above the shouting of the gale, The whipping sheet, the dashing spray, I heard, with notes of joy and wail, A piper play.

Along the dipping deck he trod, The dusk about his shadowy form; He seemed like some strange ancient god Of song and storm.

He gave his dim-seen pipes a skirl And war went down the darkling air; Then came a sudden subtle swirl, And love was there.

What were the winds that flailed and flayed The sea to him, the night obscure? In dreams he strayed some brackened glade, Some heathery moor.

And if he saw the slanting spars, And if he watched the shifting track, He marked, too, the eternal stars Shine through the wrack.

And so amid the deep sea din, And so amid the wastes of foam, Afar his heart was happy in His highland home!

The Wind and the Sea

Never the long wind dieth, Never, never, But sigheth, crieth, In its old endeavor, Where the shifting sand and shingle Meet and mingle, And the lifting land and the surge of the waters sever!

Never the long wind faileth. Never, never, But still availeth In its old endeavor; Mortals, the changeful-hearted, May be parted, But the wind and the sea are wedded forever and ever!

The Tides

Through rush and reed The long, strong tides recede, Jostle and surge, And toss and urge, And foam and merge, Where lily roots shine bright like bronzen brede.

"Haste! haste!" That is their cry; Back to the mother waste They fleet, they fly, Again to be embraced-- Again to be a part Of that great heart!

As set the tides, so we, After the stress and roar Along life's shore, Shall one day set toward the eternal sea!

A Sea Rover

The breakers dash, the breakers boom, Upon the beaches ceaselessly; Beyond the line of flying spume Stretch weltering wastes of sea.

There gray gulls hold their loud carouse, The four great winds rejoice or mourn, There go deep barques, with plunging prows, On far adventures borne.

That one, with streaming pennon, seeks The golden gates that guard the morn, That one the perilous island peaks Beyond the stormy Horn.

My fancy sails with each and all, Unleashed, untrammeled, unconfined; There is no bond, there is no thrall, Can chain the roving mind!

The Mist Barque

Over the wave-rim faint and far (Spectral sail and ghostly spar) Through the mist-banks a vessel glides Biding the ridge of the tossing tides.

Is it Van der Deeken again, Scourge of the sea, with his evil men, Come to wreak some murky spell Out of the yawn of the gulfs of Hell?

Thus it seems that the craft might be, With its shifting shroud of mystery, Forth from the unknown weirdly cast, Into the unknown fading fast.

Now no sign of it near or far, Spectral sail or ghostly spar! Yet shall I dream of it shudderingly, Vanished, eldritch ship of the sea,

Fearful lest some barque be borne In wake of the wraith (ah, hearts that mourn!) Through the power of its fatal spell Into the yawn of the gulfs of Hell.

A Sea Shell

You speak to me Of the long plunge and welter of the sea; Likewise you are Oracular Of its low melody. You voice its laughing moods, Its lyric interludes, Its secrecies, its sorceries, its mysteries, Its tragic histories. Aye, all that it has breathed, may breathe, shall breathe, You unto me bequeath; Thus am I made the fair inheritor Of that rare essence of true harmony Which many a land-girt exile hungers for,-- The sea!

Night Song by the Sea

Wind and rain are at the pane, Shrilling, drumming without cease; And the breakers' loud refrain Gives the shuddering heart no peace. Lord of all the things that be, Pity Thou the souls at sea!

Snugly roofed with warmth and glow, And encompassed soft by sleep, Little we land-dwellers know Of the terrors of the deep. Lord, in Thy sweet charity, Pity Thou the souls at sea!

On the smiling face of morn Sure are we to gaze again; What of those poor waifs forlorn Furrowing the untracked main? Lord, in their dire need of Thee, Pity Thou the souls at sea!

Although riven be the rail, Snapped the shroud and rent the mast, May they into harbor sail, All their perils overpast! Lord, in Thy compassion, be Pilot to the souls at sea!

From far lagoons be-plumed with palm, By cove and cape, by bluff and bay, Through depths of storm, through vasts of calm, They speed their way.

The pharos flashes on their flight; They do not heed its beckoning beam; The great North, stretching weird and white, Lures like a dream;

Lures, and they answer to the call; Charms, and they yield them to the spell, Moved ever by a subtle thrall Inscrutable.

Do you not feel it, comrade, too, The inescapable delight, The mounting rapture, that bids you Take vernal flight?

A Sea Change

Night-long I heard the poignant undertone, The interminable sobbing of the sea; And now that morn breaks dim and dolorously I mark the riotous surges landward blown, Tempestuous and towering, and hurled prone Upon the stark sand reaches; and the glee Of the mad wind, its maniac monody, Mingles with ocean's dithyrambic moan.

Not so yestreen, when westward flamed the sun, Flinging athwart the waves a lustrous path, Tinging the sky with colors rich and strange! The black night wrought this mystery of wrath, This mood demonic (reason seems there none), This weird and inexplicable sea change!

Saint Sepulchre's Beside the Sea

The new moon marked the twilight hour, A night-jar quavered eerily, And swallows circled round the tower-- Saint Sepulchre's beside the sea.