Poems (Scudder)/Seashore Memories
SEASHORE MEMORIES
I shall return no more Until I have grown old—then I can see Without this sudden, clutching pain At heart and throat The long white curve of beach outlined Against twin depths of blue, So soft, so perfect like the creamy leaf Of a gigantic rose. The sea that trembles virgin like With the impatient kisses of the sun, Now wistful, tremulous Behind her silver-spangled veil, Then swooning in a vivid ecstasy Of purest sapphire light. The distant sails That slowly moving, seem to mock The grey-winged gulls who dart Hither and yon, so aimless and so swift. The long, dark wall where leaps the spray, And farther off, The clustered cottage-roofs of autumn hues, Orange and red and brown. Even the smallest things, the waxy green, Low-growing weeds that mark The threadlike course Where a brave streamlet strove to reach the sea, The fleet sand-spirals rising light As the pale yellow smoke From fairy signal fires—all make too keen The throbbing memories of days Not to be lived again. Oh, my first lover with the sea-blue eyes, Would I not give the rest Of youth and all the shrivelled years Of eld to see—Only to see once more The sunlight on that golden head of thine?