Poems (Spofford)/Left Ashore
LEFT ASHORE.
Softly it stole up out of the sea,The day that brought my dole to me;Slowly into the star-sown gray,Dim and dappled, it soared away.Who would have dreamed such tender lightWas brimming over with bale and blight?Who would have dreamed that fitful breezeFanned from the tumult of tossing seas?Oh, softly and slowly stole up from the seaThe day that brought my dole to me!
Glad was I at the open door,While my footfall lingered along the floor,For three bright heads at that dawn of dayClose on the self-same pillow lay;Three dear mouths I bent and kissed,As the gold and rose and amethystOf the eastern sky was round us shed;And three little happy faces sped To the dancing boat,—and he went too,—And lightly the wind that morning blew.
Many a time had one and allGone out before to the deep-sea haul;Many a time come rowing backAgainst the tide of the Merrimack,With shining freight, and a reddening sailFlapping loose in the idle gale;While over them faded the evening glow,With stars above and with stars below,Trolling and laughing, a welcome din,To me, and the warm shore making in.
Then why that day, as I watched the boat,Did I remember the midnight roteThat rolled a signal across my sleepOf the storm that cried from deep to deep,Plunging along in its eager hasteAcross the desert and desolate waste,Far off through the heart of the gray mid seas,To rob me forever of all my ease?Oh, I know not: I only knowThat sound was the warning of my woe.
For lo, as I looked, I saw the mistOver the channel curl and twist,And blot the breaker out of sightWhere its angry horn gored the waters white,Only a sea-turn, I heard them say,That the climbing sun will burn away;But I saw it silently settling downLike an ashen pall upon the town.Oh, hush! I cried; 't is some huge storm's rack!My darlings, my darlings, will never come back!
All day I stood on the old sea-wall,Watching the great swell rise and fall;And the spume and spray drove far and thin,But never a sail came staggering in.And out of the east a wet wind blew,And over my head the foam-flakes flew;Down came the night without a star,Loud was the cry of the raging bar;And I wrung my hands, and called, and prayed,And the black wild east all answer made.
Oh, long ere the cruel night was doneCame the muffled toll of the minute gun;Nothing it meant to me, I knew,Save that other women were waiting too;For many the craft that, cast away,On the shoals of the long Plum Island lay,Wrecked and naked, a hungry hordeOf fierce white surges leaping aboard;And bale and bundle came up from the sea,But nothing ever came back to me.
And though every pool where the full tides tossI search for some lock of curling floss,Yet still in my window, night by night,The little candle is burning bright;For, oh, if I suddenly turned to meetMy darlings coming with flying feet,While I in the place they left me sat,No greater marvel 't would be than thatWhen so softly, so slowly, stole up from the seaThe day that brought my dole to me!