Light Love by the Sea—Glory

O LOVE, how the chorus
Of billowy laughter
Softens here for us,
And the winds' merry wafture
To a murmur subsideth,
Dulled by uneven
Cavewall that hideth
A span of blue heaven,
And sunflashing ocean,
Yet all in a minute
If you make a mere motion,
Your ear is full in it,
In the full tide of thunder
Sea pours in his joying ;
Even so with blithe wonder
A child who is toying
To a shell's heart may listen,
Hold the lips near, withdraw them ;
How the jewel waves glisten.
While sunny winds flaw them ;
Green billows are blending
Clear luminous bosoms,
Confusedly lending
One another white blossoms ;
Rank after rank they
On the sand fall in froth, or
Where iron cliffs flank, they
Rush athwart one another.
Grow transient fountains
Cloudily foaming,
Robe grim craggy mountains
Whitefurred with their coming.
Hear what a glorious
Wild warsong resounding.
As from ever- victorious
Hosts leaping and bounding !
Blue air is alive with
Young joy of their forces ;
Lo ! how they drive with
Tossed manes of white horses !
From flickering foam-blossom
Shadows are sliding
Down the waves' hollow-dome-bosom,
Gleaming and gliding.
Little shells on a yellow sand,
With a wave-damascening.
Little wells in the mellowland.
Eyes of deep meaning !
The glad ripple, in dancing
On the shore with a light froth,
In his footing and glancing
Leaves it marked like a night-moth.
Gems in the carmine
Of dim fretted hollows !
The cave is a starmine
Where the eye follows ;
Purple seaweeds are laving
In pure pools at leisure,
Languidly waving
With delicate pleasure ;
Fantastical arches
With cloud's wavy margin,
W'here the ocean-wave marches,
Plumed cavalry charging !
You behold lonely islands
On the sea's azure through them ;
I feel they are my lands,
I a bird flying to them.
... If the wet sand be sinking
Under your frail foot,
That in water land drinking
Groweth down like a pale root,
Sit here on my knee, love,
'Tis firmer and drier !
Safe here will you be, love,
From seas that aspire ;
Ah ! let us enjoy, love.
The moment in flying ;
Even while we toy, love,
Daylight is dying !
Then will the hour come,
And touch with forgetting.
Stars over our numb
Forms rising and setting.
Alive the World-Wonder
Flames thundering onward.
And while we go under,
Earth sweepeth sunward ;
I acclaim the wild world-masque,
Who cease to be agent,
Who, faint with my furled task.
Fall out of the pageant !