A Mother To The Sea.

The Child.

I hear you weeping, mother, dear,--
    I hear you wake and weep;
What brings the tears into your eyes
    When you should be asleep?
I hear my name upon your lips;
    What is it that you say
Of one who broke a trusting heart,
    But now is far away?


The Mother.

I weep for you, my pretty lass,
    Frail flower of love unblessed,
Because I can not always hold
    You close unto my breast;
I weep that you some day must go
    Alone your way to find,
For, oh, you have your mother's eyes,
    And men are seldom kind!

The Sky Line.

Like black fangs in a cruel ogre's jaw
    The grim piles lift against the sunset sky;
Down drops the night, and shuts the horrid maw--
    I listen, breathless, but there comes no cry.


Defeat.

He sits and looks into the west
    Where twilight gathers, wan and gray,
A knight who quit the Golden Quest,
    And flung Excalibur away.


To an Amazon.

O! twain in spirit, we shall know
    Thy like no more, so fierce, so mild,
One breast shorn clean to rest the bow,
    One milk-full for thy warrior child.


The Old Mother.

Life is like an old mother whom trouble and toil
Have sufficed the best part of her nature to spoil,
Whom her children, the Passions, so ...

It sings to me, it sings to me,
The shore-blown voice of the blithesome sea!
    Of its world of gladness all untold,
    Of its heart of green, and its mines of gold,
And desires that leap and flee.

It moans to me, it moans to me!
The storm-stirred voice of the restive sea!
    Of the vain dismay and the yearning pain
    For hopes that will never be born again
From the womb of the wavering sea.

It calls to me, it calls to me,
The luring voice of the rebel sea!
    And I long with a love that is born of tears
    For the wild fresh life, and the glorying fears,
For the quest and the mystery.

It wails to me, it wails to me,
Of the deep dark graves in the yawning sea;
    And I hear the voice of a boy that is gone.
    But the lad sl...

I am the word that lovers leave unsaid,
    The eloquence of ardent lips grown mute,
The mourning mother's heart-cry for her dead,
    The flower of faith that grows to unseen fruit.

I am the speech of prophets when their eyes
    Behold some splendid vision of the soul;
The song of morning stars, the hills' replies,
    The far call of the immaterial pole.

And, since I must be mateless, I shall win
    One boon beyond the meed of common clay:
My life shall end where other lives begin,
    And live when other lives have passed away.

River! that in silence windest
Through the meadows, bright and free,
Till at length thy rest thou findest
In the bosom of the sea!

Four long years of mingled feeling,
Half in rest, and half in strife,
I have seen thy waters stealing
Onward, like the stream of life.

Thou hast taught me, Silent River!
    Many a lesson, deep and long;
Thou hast been a generous giver;
    I can give thee but a song.

Oft in sadness and in illness,
    I have watched thy current glide,
Till the beauty of its stillness
    Overflowed me, like a tide.

And in better hours and brighter,
    When I saw thy waters gleam,
I have felt my heart beat lighter,
    And leap onward with thy stream.

Not for this alone I love thee,
    Nor be...

Oh Sea, that with infinite sadness, and infinite yearning
Liftest thy crystal forehead toward the unpitying stars,--
Evermore ebbing and flowing, and evermore returning
Over thy fathomless depths, and treacherous island bars:--

Oh thou complaining sea, that fillest the wide void spaces
Of the blue nebulous air with thy perpetual moan,
Day and night, day and night, out of thy desolate places--
Tell me thy terrible secret, oh Sea! what hast thou done.

Sometimes in the merry mornings, with the sunshine's golden wonder
Glancing along thy cheek, unwrinkled of any wind,
Thou seemest to be at peace, stifling thy great heart under
A face of absolute calm,--with danger and death behind!

But I hear thy voice at midnight, smiting the awful silence
With the long suspir...