Sea-Gifts

Give thou a gift to me
From thy treasure-house, O sea!

Said a red-lipped laughing girl
While the summer yet was young;

And the sea laughed back and flung
At her feet a priceless pearl.

Give thou a gift to me
From thy treasure-house, O sea!

Said the maiden once again
On a night of wind and rain.

Like a ghost the moon above her
Stared through winding-sheets of cloud.

On the sand in sea-weed shroud,
Lay the pale corpse of her lover.

Which is better, gain or loss?
Which is nobler, crown or cross?

We shall know these things, maybe,
When the dead rise from the sea.

Victor James Daley

Victor James Daley, born on 5 September 1858, was an Australian poet noted for his lyrical works. Daley’s publications, including his collection of poems

Victor James Daley

Unto This Last

Victor James Daley, Simple Poetry

The Old Bohemian

Victor James Daley, Simple Poetry

In a Wine Cellar

Victor James Daley, Simple Poetry

Lethe

Victor James Daley, Simple Poetry

English

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A Sunset Fantasy

Spellbound by a sweet fantasy
At evenglow I stand
Beside an opaline strange sea
That rings a sunset land.

The rich lights fade out one by one,
And, like a peony
Drowning in wine, the crimson sun
Sinks down in that strange sea.

His wake across the ocean-floor
In a long glory lies,
Like a gold wave-way to the shore
Of some sea paradise.

My dream flies after him, and I
Am in another land;
The sun sets in another sky,
And we sit hand in hand.

Gray eyes look into mine; such eyes
I think the angels are,
Soft as the soft light in the skies
When shines the morning star,

And tremulous as morn, when thin
Gold lights begin to glow,
Revealing the bright soul within
As dawn the sun below.

So, hand...

Victor James Daley

On The Beach.

Lines By A Private Tutor.



When the young Augustus Edward
Has reluctantly gone bedward
(He's the urchin I am privileged to teach),
From my left-hand waistcoat pocket
I extract a batter'd locket
And I commune with it, walking on the beach.

I had often yearn'd for something
That would love me, e'en a dumb thing;
But such happiness seem'd always out of reach:
Little boys are off like arrows
With their little spades and barrows,
When they see me bearing down upon the beach;

And although I'm rather handsome,
Tiny babes, when I would dance 'em
On my arm, set up so horrible a screech
That I pitch them to their nurses
With (I fear me) mutter'd curses,
And resume my lucubrations on the beach.

And the rabbits won't come ...

Charles Stuart Calverley

The Cruise of the In Memoriam

The wan light of a stormy dawn
Gleamed on a tossing ship:
It was the In Memoriam
Upon a mourning trip.

Wild waves were on the windward bow,
And breakers on the lee;
And through her sides the women heard
The seething of the sea.

O Captain! cried a widow fair,
Her plump white hands clasped she,
Thinkst thou, if drowned in this dread storm,
That savèd we shall be?

You speak in riddles, lady dear,
How savèd can we be
If we are drowned? Alas, I mean
In Paradise! said she.

O Ive sailed North, and Ive sailed South
(He was a godless wight),
But boy or man, since my days began,
That shore I neer did sight!

The Captain told the First Mate bold
What that fair lady said;
The First Mate sneered in h...

Victor James Daley

Alma Venus

Only a breath - hardly a breath! The shore
Is still a huddled alabaster floor
Of shelving ice and shattered slabs of cold,
Stern wreckage of the fiercely frozen wave,
Gleaming in mailed wastes of white and gold;
As though the sea, in an enchanted grave,
Of fearful crystal locked, no more shall stir
Softly, all lover, to the April moon:
Hardly a breath! yet was I now aware
Of a most delicate balm upon the air,
Almost a voice that almost whispered "soon"!

Not of the earth it was - no living thing
Moves in the iron landscape far or near,
Saving, in raucous flight, the winter crow,
Staining the whiteness with its ebon wing,
Or silver-sailing gull, or 'mid the drear
Rock cedars, like a summer soul astray,
A lone red squirrel makes believe to play,
N...

Richard Le Gallienne

Love-Laurel

(In Memory of Henry Kendall)


Ah! that God once would touch my lips with song
To pierce, as prayer doth heaven, earths breast of iron,
So that with sweet mouth I might sing to thee,
O sweet dead singer buried by the sea,
A song, to woo thee, as a wooing siren,
Out of that silent sleep which seals too long
Thy mouth of melody.

For, if live lips might speak awhile to dead,
Or any speech could reach the sad world under
This world of ours, song surely should awake
Thee who didst dwell in shadow for songs sake!
Alas! thou canst not hear the voice of thunder,
Nor low dirge over thy low-lying head
The winds of morning make.

Down through the clay there comes no sound of these;
Down in the grave there is no sign of Summer,
Nor any knowledg...

Victor James Daley

The Tide.

Landward the tide setteth buoyantly breezily, -
    Landward the waves ripple sparkling and free, -
Ho, the proud ship, like a thing of life, easily,
    Gracefully sweeps o'er the white-crested sea!
In from the far-away lands she is steering now,
    Straight for her anchorage, fearless and free, -
Lo, as I gaze, how she seems to be nearing now,
    Sun-lighted shores, a still haven, and me!

Landward the tide setteth! - mark my proud argosy
    As the breeze flutters her pennons of snow,
Wafting from far the glad mariner's melody
    O'er the blue waters in rhythmical flow!
Tell me, oh, soul of mine, what is the freightage fair
    'Neath her white wings that she beareth to thee?
Treasures of golden ore, gems from Golconda's shore,
    Lo, she is brin...

Pamela S. Vining (J. C. Yule)