The hill was low, but stretched away
A straggling mile or so to where
The sea was stamping, tossing spray
Beyond its bulwarks black and bare :
A sullen sea of gray.
Ah me, it was so desolate,
And sadder for the sea-bird's cry
Thrillingly thin. There seemed a weight
Brooding, as if the leaden sky
Hung heavier for hate.
The grasses jerked as they were stung
By vicious winds. A daisy's head
Crouched in a tuft till it was flung
From its uneasy, troubled bed
And tost the waves among.
A bent, old man was climbing slow
And then I pressed the shell
Close to my ear
And listened well,
And straightway like a bell
Came low and clear
The slow, sad murmur of far distant seas,
Whipped by an icy breeze
Upon a shore
Wind-swept and desolate.
It was a sunless strand that never bore
The footprint of a man,
Nor felt the weight
Since time began
Of any human quality or stir
Save what the dreary winds and waves incur.
And in the hush of waters was the sound
We heard the thrushes by the shore and sea,
And saw the golden stars’ nativity,
Then round we went the lane by Thomas Flynn,
Across the church where bones lie out and in;
And there I asked beneath a lonely cloud
Of strange delight, with one bird singing loud,
What change you’d wrought in graveyard, rock and sea,
This new wild paradise to wake for me....
Yet knew no more than knew those merry sins
Had built this stack of thigh-bones, jaws and shins.
My hands are motion ; they cannot rest.
They are the foam upon the sea,
Borne with a wave to a fleeting crest,
Hurled back, borne on, unceasingly.
They are existent and made whole
In their unrest, as the entity
Of foam is spun where waters roll
Back, and on, eternally.
I was sewing a seam one day —
Just this way —
Flashing four silver stitches there
With thread, like this, fine as a hair.
And then four here, and there again,
When
The seam I sewed dropped out of sight
I saw the sea come rustling in,
Big and grey, windy and bright . . .
Then my thread that was as thin
As hair, tangled up like smoke
And broke.
I threaded up my needle, then —
Four here, four there, and here again.
Day-long I hear life's sounds beat like the sea ;
Day-long, day-long
They sweep their deep tide-rhythms over me,
And as a song
Reiterated, fall unmeaningly.
Where once I bent life's echoes to my will,
Day after day
Following wings of sound over the sill
Far, far away.
Now my sick fancy lies inert and still.
Silence that slowly wraps me with the ease
Of dreamed-out sleep.
Quenches the sound of vague realities
Whose echoes keep
Their rhythms like old winds in drying seas.
You — and you. Passer-by — and you;
You, languid feet, and you, wild to climb,
Seeking your respite or star-rimmed view.
Where do you go down the streets of Time?
Never the same, yet ever the same —
You and you, hurrying, slow.
Crowding the way with your motley claim
Of life, always you come and go.
You, stung with purpose. You, driven by
Blindly before Creation's sweep.
Are there ways for the searchers of stars on high?
And other ways for the seekers of sleep?
Or only one way for all to run? ...
Only one sound drifts up to me,
The blend of every tread in one.
Impersonal as the beat of the sea.
Reed,
slashed and torn
but doubly rich--
such great heads as yours
drift upon temple-steps,
but you are shattered
in the wind.
Myrtle-bark
is flecked from you,
scales are dashed
from your stem,
sand cuts your petal,
furrows it with hard edge,
like flint
on a bright stone.
Yet though the whole wind
Your stature is modelled
with straight tool-edge:
you are chiselled like rocks
that are eaten into by the sea.
With the turn and grasp of your wrist
and the chords' stretch,
there is a glint like worn brass.
The ridge of your breast is taut,
and under each the shadow is sharp,
and between the clenched muscles
of your slender hips.
From the circle of your cropped hair
there is light,
and about your male torse
and the foot-arch and the straight ankle.
You stand rigid and mighty--
Rose, harsh rose,
marred and with stint of petals,
meagre flower, thin,
sparse of leaf,
more precious
than a wet rose
single on a stem--
you are caught in the drift.
Stunted, with small leaf,
you are flung on the sand,
you are lifted
in the crisp sand
that drives in the wind.
Can the spice-rose
drip such acrid fragrance
hardened in a leaf?
On the paved parapet
you will step carefully
from amber stones to onyx
flecked with violet,
mingled with light,
half showing the sea-grass
and sea-sand underneath,
reflecting your white feet
and the gay strap crimson
as lily-buds of Arion,
and the gold that binds your feet.
You will pass
beneath the island disk
(and myrtle-wood,
the carved support of it)
and the white stretch
Whirl up, sea--
whirl your pointed pines,
splash your great pines
on our rocks,
hurl your green over us,
cover us with your pools of fir.