Poems (Hinxman)/The Drowned Lover

by Emmeline Hinxman

THE DROWNED LOVER. (Improvised.)

Shine on her, pitying Moon;
 And, ye sonorous tides,
O, turning soft and turning soon,
 Bear up against the smooth rock's sides
  Her long-required boon,—
The only boon of you she asks,
The aim of all her lonely tasks,
Her long love's hope, her long love's end:
  See now how she doth bend,
 From the crag whereon she sits,
Her large clear eyes across the watery field
 To that wandering sail that dips
 Its whiteness in the sunset's parting hue,
As though her life's one secret it revealed.
 And ever and anon, by fits,
Sweet fragments and wild burthens, old and new
 She sendeth from her dreamy lips;—
 "Music which the dead man hears
 Music though she knows it not,
 Where he lies, upon his sailor-cot,
Tapestried o'er with sea-weeds fine,
With coral crusted, fair shells beaded.
Could a richer canopy be needed
 To make an 'emperor's chamber shine?
 Ah, soon, fair maid, it shall be thine!
And strange and lustrous creatures of the sea
  Shall thy torch-bearers be,
Thou shalt be lighted by those living torches,
  Under the agate porches,
To that tryst for which thou yearnest,
And whence thou never more returnest.