The Night-Fisher

Grey liegeman of sundown and dawn, who chides
With a lone song the ocean-murmuring trees,
I haste with thee at dusk to stalk the seas
Where feed the finny flocks of shepherding tides.
O wild the pulses beat as round us glides
The tidal spirit, like a midnight breeze,
Burdened with moan of life-and-death decrees,--
The deep night's tide-line pacing with our strides!

More weird than winkings of the ruddy Mars
These flitting gleams and breaths of hell and heaven,
Searching the shadowy folds 'twixt peace and dread!--
Nor dreamed I such solemnities did leaven
Life's daily meal and league its dole of bread
With unseen forces vaster than the stars'.