156
A SEASIDE IDYL
As though some Presence were approaching me.
Loud as the voice of Ocean's dark-haired king
A breeze came down the sea,—the searose high;
The surging waves sang round me—this their song:
"Oh, yet your love will triumph! He shall come
In love's wild tumult; he shall come once more,—
By tracks of ocean or by paths of earth;
The wanderer will reach you and remain."
The breakers dashed among the rocks, and they
Seemed full of life; the foam dissolved the sands,
And the sedge trembled in the swelling tide.
Was this a promise of the vaunting Sea,
Or the illusion of a last despair?
Either, or both, still homeward I must go,
And that way turned mine eyes, and thought they met
A picture,—surely so,—or I was mad.
Loud as the voice of Ocean's dark-haired king
A breeze came down the sea,—the searose high;
The surging waves sang round me—this their song:
"Oh, yet your love will triumph! He shall come
In love's wild tumult; he shall come once more,—
By tracks of ocean or by paths of earth;
The wanderer will reach you and remain."
The breakers dashed among the rocks, and they
Seemed full of life; the foam dissolved the sands,
And the sedge trembled in the swelling tide.
Was this a promise of the vaunting Sea,
Or the illusion of a last despair?
Either, or both, still homeward I must go,
And that way turned mine eyes, and thought they met
A picture,—surely so,—or I was mad.
