ON WAIKIKI BEACH 
I07 
 
So deep the sense of beauty, and so keen ! 
The calm abiding holiness of love 
Reigns ; and so fallen from the heights above 
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 destines, 
Leave him forgotten of life and time, immortal, 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