Pictures in Rhyme/Upon the Sands
UPON THE SANDS
I took his cheeks between my hands,
I kissed his face and forehead o'er,
Where he lay on the sheeted sands
Which stretched along the shore.
I kissed his face and forehead o'er,
Where he lay on the sheeted sands
Which stretched along the shore.
The surf crawled slowly up, and sad,
Like some sea-dog which owned his sway,
And yet had rent him—sightless, mad,
It came and moaned all day.
But there he lay, so still and white;
I dared not weep, I thought he slept.
The tearless day shrank back from night;
I might have woke him had I wept.
The night sank down into the seas,
New morning burst upon the skies;
And with its first breath on the breeze
I stooped and kissed his eyes.
But when he woke not even then,
Although my whispers stirred his hair,
I knew he breathed, away from men,
A higher and a purer air.
The essence of a Godhead's breath,
And that the sleep my darling slept,
Was called of us the body's death—