My days are like sands; colourless,
Each matched to each, unerringly
They drift. The salt bleach of a sea
Has washed them clean and lustreless;
The teeth of rock on ragged strands
Have ground them to an even grey,
And one wind blows them a one way.
But Oh, the slow making of sands.
All is here; forgotten things
Mix with the unforgettable.
Granite blends with tinted shell.
And nothing so stable that it clings
To its stability. Had there
Been more of marble, more of gold.
The sands would hide in their grim hold
Nothing more wise, nothing more fair.
Then the golden hour
Will tick its last
And the flame will go down in the flower.
A briefer length of moon
Will mark the sea-line and the yellow dune.
Then we may think of this, yet
There will be something forgotten
And something we should forget.
It will be like all things we know:
The stone will fail; a rose is sure to go.
It will be quiet then and we may stay
As long at the picket gate
But there will be less to say.
I STOOD in my window
looking at the double cherry :
A great height of white stillness.
Underneath a sky
the colour of milky grey jade.
Suddenly a crow flew between me and the tree —
Swooping, falling, in a shadow-black curve —
And blotted himself out in the blurred branches
of a leafless ash.
There he stayed for some time,
and I could only distinguish him by his
slight moving.
Then a wind caught the upper branches of the cherry,
And the long, white stems nodded up and down,
casually, to me in the window.
Nodded — but overhead the grey jade clouds
Written when the news arrived.
Toll for the brave!
The brave that are no more!
All sunk beneath the wave
Fast by their native shore.
Eight hundred of the brave,
Whose courage well was tried,
Had made the vessel heel,
And laid her on her side.
A land-breeze shook the shrouds,
And she was overset;
Down went the Royal George,
With all her crew complete.
Toll for the brave!
Brave Kempenfelt is gone;
His last sea-fight is fought,
Light rain-drops fall and wrinkle the sea,
Then vanish, and die utterly.
One would not know that rain-drops fell
If the round sea-wrinkles did not tell.
So souls come down and wrinkle life
And vanish in the flesh-sea strife.
One might not know that souls had place
Were't not for the wrinkles in life's face.
I entered the sea
only to talk to the dead
loving
raging
we kiss and do not tell
how all things end
profess great kindness
at a plague house
I hear that pretend mouth
the evening sea
where I am done
as the sea by a great calm
what words would break me
will I think them enemies
disappointed in God
and in authority
I find it so necessary to have
that which is greater
sand and sea and every foot
of this road
where the sea is now
we would meet
out in the sand
where that busy and sorrowful
answer to questions
was most clear
we broke up leaving it
so painful a thing
to be sunk
a lock torments me
unable to give
more than ash
where ash is ordinary as water
and infinite as hope
this lying sea
my only work is to look
to look after
the tide
serving a sea I keep
the noon till night
I let be