Poems (Allen)/Voyaging

by Elizabeth Chase Allen

VOYAGING.

N the fierce battle of contending waves
  Alternate lost and won,
Driving o'er sunken wrecks and nameless graves
  The strong ship struggles on.

Striving and toiling like a soul in bonds,
  Its haven unattained;—
The wild waves call, and the wild wind responds,
  And rest is not yet gained.

Often the eye sweeps the horizon's verge,
  To see if there may be
Some small relief from the incessant surge,
  And the wide waste of sea;

But all in vain. No sail or living thing
  Breaks the monotony,—
Only the lonesome gulls on slanting wing
  Between the sea and sky.

The dews descend and the brief day is done,
  The skies flush rosily,
And all too early the unwlling sun
  Goes down behind the sea.

I gaze and gaze, and wonder childishly
  If haply there may be,
Beyond that distant line of sky and sea,
  One heart which longs for me;

If, far beyond these billows hoarse and rude,
  Like needle to the pole,
There trembles toward my utter solitude
  One unforgetting soul.

The shadows fall, the wind grows chill and damp,
  The still stars crown the night,
And from the binnacle the faithful lamp
  Sends out its lonely light.

I gaze upon the hurrying waves, and mark
  Their twinkling brilliancy,—
Like myriad lite-flies drowning in the dark
  Of the insatiate sea.

I think with tears of the dear distant land,—
  The love which now I lack,—
The pleading eyes, the dear detaining hand,
  Which strove to hold me back.

To these, even in my dreams, my memory turns,
  Prizing Love's blessed boon,—
To these in vain my homesick spirit yearns
  As sad seas toward the moon.

All the dear faces which I left behind
  Seem dearer and more fair,
All the old friendships cluster near and kind,
  And keep me from despair.

So am I cheered and comforted, to prove
  What these drear days have shown:
The soul that shrines one dear remembered love
  Is nevermore alone!