Collected Works (Vol. II)

34 ORACLES Here, in the crescent beach and bay, the sea, Curven and carven in warm shapes of dream, Answers the love-song of the lilied stream, And moves to bridal music. The lion-shapen headland guards the shore 3; The ocean, the bull-throated, evermore Roars; the vast wheel of heaven turns above, Its rim of pain, its jewelled heart of love ; Sun-waved, the eagle wing Of the air of feathered spring Royally sweeps, and on the musical marge Watches alone the man. O silvern shape and span Of moonlight, reaching over the grey, large Breast of the surf-bound strand, Life of the earth, God’s child, Man’s bride, the light of the sweet land ! Are emeralds ever a spark of this clear green, Or sapphires hints of this diviner blue, Or rubies shadows of this rosy hue, Or light itself elsewhere so clear and clean? For all the sparkling dews of heaven fallen far Crystalline, fixed, forgotten (as a star Forgets its nebulous virginity) Are set in all the sky and earth and sea. Shining with solar fire, The single-eyed desire Of scent and sound and sight and sense perfuses The still and lambent light Of the essential night ; And all the heart of me is fain, and muses, As if for ever doomed to dream Or pass in peace Lethean adown the grey Lethean stream. So deep the sense of beauty, and so keen ! ‘The calm abiding holiness of love Reigns; and so fallen from the heights above Stern and free, | Immeasurable, the influence unseen Of music and of spiritual fire, That the soul sleeps, forgotten of desire, Only remembering its God-like birth Reflected in the deity of earth, Becometh even as God. The pensive period OF night and day beats like a waving fan No more, no more: the years, — Reft of their joys and fears, Pass like pale faces, leave the life of man Untroubled of their destinies, eave him forgotten of life and time, im- ‘mortal, calm and wise. Only the ceaseless surf on coral towers, The changeless change of the unchanging ocean, Laps the bright night, with unsubstantial motion Winnowing the starlight, plumed with feathery flowers Of foam and phosphor glory, the strange glow Of the day’s amber fallen to indigo, Lit of its own depth in some subtle wise, — A pavement for the footsteps from the skies Of angels walking thus Not all unseen of us, Nor all unknown, nor unintelligible, When with souls lifted up In the Cadmean cup, ? As incense lifted in the thurible, We know that God is even as we, Light from the sky, and life on earth, and love beneath the sea. THE TRIADS OF DESPAIR. Written off the Coast of Japan. I, I Lie in liquid moonlight poured from the exalted orb. Orion waves his jewelled sword ; the tingling waves absorb 1 See Euripides, Bacchae.