Poems (Jackson)/"Spoken"

by Helen Hunt Jackson

"SPOKEN."

OUNTING the hours by bells and lights    We rose and sank;The waves on royal banquet-heights    Tossed off and drankTheir jewels made of sun and moon,White pearls at midnight, gold at noon.

Counting the hours by bells and lights,    We sailed and sailed;Six lonely days, six lonely nights,    No ship we hailed.Till all the sea seemed bound in spell,And silence sounded like a knell.

At last, just when by bells and lights    Of seventh dayThe dawn grew clear, in sudden flights    White sails awayTo east, like birds, went spreading slowTheir wings which reddened in the glow.

No more we count the bells and lights;    We laugh for joy.The trumpets with their brazen mights    Call, "Ship ahoy!"We hold each other's hands; our cheeksAre wet with tears; but no one speaks.

In instant comes the sun and lights    The ship with fire;Each mast creeps up to dizzy heights,    A blazing spire;One faint "Ahoy," then all in vainWe look; we are alone again.

I have forgotten bells and lights,    And waves which drankTheir jewels up; those days and nights    Which rose and sankHave turned like other pasts, and fled,And carried with them all their dead.

But every day that fire ship lights    My distant blue,And every day glad wonder smites    My heart anew,How in that instant each could heedAnd hear the other's swift God-speed.

Counting by hours thy days and nights    In weariness,O patient soul, on godlike heights    Of loneliness,I passed thee by; tears filled our eyes;The loud winds mocked and drowned our cries.

The hours go by, with bells and lights;    We sail, we drift;Our souls in changing tasks and rites,    Find work and shrift.But this I pray, and praying know'Till faith almost to joy can grow.

That hour by hour the bells, the lights    Of sound of flameWeave spell which ceaselessly recites    To thee a name,And smiles which thou canst not forgetFor thee are suns which never set.