BRIGHTON FRONT
Deaf by dumb brother,
Prick’d by Vacuity’s unsparing goad,
Man thrusts and presses o’er the clanking flags.
O, is the city clean forgot of Peace?
Can nothing put the spangled squalor by,
And bid the futile buzzing tension cease?
Ah, then, to escape the unvaluable strife!
To front large issues, and achieve release
From this mad flow of triviality
This ebb of life!
Look! look! another light!
Listen! another voice!
Forget the street—
Turn, and with lampless and oft-stumbling feet
O’er layer’d nets outspread,
Past patient keels that keep
Dumb witness to the Deep,
And over the untrack’d sharp shingle tread
Whither the quiet calling summoneth.
The thick loud town to left of us and right,
Forth! Face the lonely sea, the wide bare night,
And once again draw breath.
Deep, vast and free,
Absolute, naught between,
Reigns overhead Heaven’s right immensity!
Life on this landward salty air doth sit
Quickening it:
57
