He Heard her Sing.
47
A voice came over the water from over the eastern cape,
Like the voice of some ocean daughter wailing a lover's escape,—
A voice so plaintive and distant, as faint as a wounded dove,
Whose wings are scarcely resistant to the air beneath and above,
Wavering, panting, urging from the farthest east to the west,
Over some wild sea surging in the hope forlorn of its nest;
A voice that quivered and trembled, with falls of a broken heart,
And then like that dove reassembled its forces to play out its part;
Till it came to a fall that was dying, the end of an infinite grief,
A sobbing and throbbing and sighing that death was a welcome relief:
And so there was silence once more, and the moonlight looked sad as a pall,
And I stood entranced on the shore and marvelled what next would befall.
Like the voice of some ocean daughter wailing a lover's escape,—
A voice so plaintive and distant, as faint as a wounded dove,
Whose wings are scarcely resistant to the air beneath and above,
Wavering, panting, urging from the farthest east to the west,
Over some wild sea surging in the hope forlorn of its nest;
A voice that quivered and trembled, with falls of a broken heart,
And then like that dove reassembled its forces to play out its part;
Till it came to a fall that was dying, the end of an infinite grief,
A sobbing and throbbing and sighing that death was a welcome relief:
And so there was silence once more, and the moonlight looked sad as a pall,
And I stood entranced on the shore and marvelled what next would befall.
And thus all-expectant abiding I waited not long, for soon
A boat came gliding and gliding out in the light of the moon,
A boat came gliding and gliding out in the light of the moon,
