Hills and valleys where April rallies his radiant squadron of flowers and birds,Steep strange beaches and lustrous reaches of fluctuant sea that the land engirds,Fields and downs that the sunrise crowns with life diviner than lives in words,Day by day of resurgent May salute the sun with sublime acclaim,Change and brighten with hours that lighten and darken, girdled with cloud or flame;Earth's fair face in alternate grace beams, blooms, and lowers, and is yet the same.Twice each day the divine sea's play makes glad with glory that comes and goesField and street that her waves keep sweet, when past the bounds of their old repose,Fast and fierce in renewed reverse, the foam-flecked estuary ebbs and flows.Broad and bold through the stays of old staked fast with trunks of the wildwood tree,Up from shoreward, impelled far forward, by marsh and meadow, by lawn and lea,Inland still at her own wild will swells, rolls, and revels the surging sea.Strong as time, and as faith sublime,—clothed round with shadows of hopes and fears,Nights and morrows, and joys and sorrows, alive with passion of prayers and tears,—Stands the shrine that has seen decline eight hundred waxing and waning years.Tower set square to the storms of air and change of season that glooms and glows,Wall and roof of it tempest-proof, and equal ever to suns and snows,Bright with riches of radiant niches and pillars smooth as a straight stem grows.Aisle and nave that the whelming wave of time has whelmed not or touched or neared,Arch and vault without stain or fault, by hands of craftsmen we know not reared,Time beheld them, and time was quelled; and change passed by them as one that feared.Time that flies as a dream, and dies as dreams that die with the sleep they feed,Here alone in a garb of stone incarnate stands as a god indeed,Stern and fair, and of strength to bear all burdens mortal to man's frail seed.Men and years are as leaves or tears that storm or sorrow is fain to shed:These go by as the winds that sigh, and none takes note of them quick or dead:Time, whose breath is their birth and death, folds here his pinions, and bows his head.Still the sun that beheld begun the work wrought here of unwearied handsSees, as then, though the Red King's men held ruthless rule over lawless lands,Stand their massive design, impassive, pure and proud as a virgin stands.Statelier still as the years fulfil their count, subserving her sacred state,Grows the hoary grey church whose story silence utters and age makes great:Statelier seems it than shines in dreams the face unveiled of unvanquished fate.Fate, more high than the star-shown sky, more deep than waters unsounded, shinesKeen and far as the final star on souls that seek not for charms or signs;Yet more bright is the love-shown light of men's hands lighted in songs or shrines.Love and trust that the grave's deep dust can soil not, neither may fear put out,Witness yet that their record set stands fast, though years be as hosts in rout,Spent and slain; but the signs remain that beat back darkness and cast forth doubt.Men that wrought by the grace of thought and toil things goodlier than praise dare trace,Fair as all that the world may call most fair, save only the sea's own face,Shrines or songs that the world's change wrongs not, live by grace of their own gift's grace.Dead, their names that the night reclaims—alive, their works that the day relumes—Sink and stand, as in stone and sand engraven: none may behold their tombs:Nights and days shall record their praise while here this flower of their grafting blooms.Flower more fair than the sun-thrilled air bids laugh and lighten and wax and rise,Fruit more bright than the fervent light sustains with strength from the kindled skies,Flower and fruit that the deathless root of man's love rears though the man's name dies.Stately stands it, the work of hands unknown of: statelier, afar and near,Rise around it the heights that bound our landward gaze from the seaboard here;Downs that swerve and aspire, in curve and change of heights that the dawn holds dear.Dawn falls fair on the grey walls there confronting dawn, on the low green lea,Lone and sweet as for fairies' feet held sacred, silent and strange and free,Wild and wet with its rills; but yet more fair falls dawn on the fairer sea.Eastward, round by the high green bound of hills that fold the remote fields in,Strive and shine on the low sea-line fleet waves and beams when the days begin;Westward glow, when the days burn low, the sun that yields and the stars that win.Rose-red eve on the seas that heave sinks fair as dawn when the first ray peers;Winds are glancing from sunbright Lancing to Shoreham, crowned with the grace of years;Shoreham, clad with the sunset, glad and grave with glory that death reveres.Death, more proud than the kings' heads bowed before him, stronger than all things, bowsHere his head: as if death were dead, and kingship plucked from his crownless brows,Life hath here such a face of cheer as change appals not and time avows.Skies fulfilled with the sundown, stilled and splendid, spread as a flower that spreads,Pave with rarer device and fairer than heaven's the luminous oyster-beds,Grass-embanked, and in square plots ranked, inlaid with gems that the sundown sheds.Squares more bright and with lovelier light than heaven that kindled it shines with shineWarm and soft as the dome aloft, but heavenlier yet than the sun's own shrine:Heaven is high, but the water-sky lit here seems deeper and more divine.Flowers on flowers, that the whole world's bowers may show not, here may the sunset show,Lightly graven in the waters paven with ghostly gold by the clouds aglow:Bright as love is the vault above, but lovelier lightens the wave below.Rosy grey, or as fiery spray full-plumed, or greener than emerald, gleamsPlot by plot as the skies allot for each its glory, divine as dreamsLit with fire of appeased desire which sounds the secret of all that seems;Dreams that show what we fain would know, and know not save by the grace of sleep,Sleep whose hands have removed the bands that eyes long waking and fain to weepFeel fast bound on them—light around them strange, and darkness above them steep.Yet no vision that heals division of love from love, and renews awhileLife and breath in the lips where death has quenched the spirit of speech and smile,Shows on earth, or in heaven's mid mirth, where no fears enter or doubts defile,Aught more fair than the radiant air and water here by the twilight wed,Here made one by the waning sun whose last love quickens to rosebright redHalf the crown of the soft high down that rears to northward its wood-girt head.There, when day is at height of sway, men's eyes who stand, as we oft have stood,High where towers with its world of flowers the golden spinny that flanks the wood,See before and around them shore and seaboard glad as their gifts are good.Higher and higher to the north aspire the green smooth-swelling unending downs;East and west on the brave earth's breast glow girdle-jewels of gleaming towns;Southward shining, the lands declining subside in peace that the sea's light crowns.Westward wide in its fruitful pride the plain lies lordly with plenteous grace;Fair as dawn's when the fields and lawns desire her glitters the glad land's face:Eastward yet is the sole sign set of elder days and a lordlier race.Down beneath us afar, where seethe in wilder weather the tides aflow,Hurled up hither and drawn down thither in quest of rest that they may not know,Still as dew on a flower the blue broad stream now sleeps in the fields below.Mild and bland in the fair green land it smiles, and takes to its heart the sky;Scarce the meads and the fens, the reeds and grasses, still as they stand or lie,Wear the palm of a statelier calm than rests on waters that pass them by.Yet shall these, when the winds and seas of equal days and coequal nightsRage, rejoice, and uplift a voice whose sound is even as a sword that smites,Felt and heard as a doomsman's word from seaward reaches to landward heights,Lift their heart up, and take their part of triumph, swollen and strong with rage,Rage elate with desire and great with pride that tempest and storm assuage;So their chime in the ear of time has rung from age to rekindled age.Fair and dear is the land's face here, and fair man's work as a man's may be:Dear and fair as the sunbright air is here the record that speaks him free;Free by birth of a sacred earth, and regent ever of all the sea.
Hills and valleys where April rallies his radiant squadron of flowers and birds,Steep strange beaches and lustrous reaches of fluctuant sea that the land engirds,Fields and downs that the sunrise crowns with life diviner than lives in words,
Day by day of resurgent May salute the sun with sublime acclaim,Change and brighten with hours that lighten and darken, girdled with cloud or flame;Earth's fair face in alternate grace beams, blooms, and lowers, and is yet the same.
Twice each day the divine sea's play makes glad with glory that comes and goesField and street that her waves keep sweet, when past the bounds of their old repose,Fast and fierce in renewed reverse, the foam-flecked estuary ebbs and flows.
Broad and bold through the stays of old staked fast with trunks of the wildwood tree,Up from shoreward, impelled far forward, by marsh and meadow, by lawn and lea,Inland still at her own wild will swells, rolls, and revels the surging sea.
Strong as time, and as faith sublime,—clothed round with shadows of hopes and fears,Nights and morrows, and joys and sorrows, alive with passion of prayers and tears,—Stands the shrine that has seen decline eight hundred waxing and waning years.
Tower set square to the storms of air and change of season that glooms and glows,Wall and roof of it tempest-proof, and equal ever to suns and snows,Bright with riches of radiant niches and pillars smooth as a straight stem grows.
Aisle and nave that the whelming wave of time has whelmed not or touched or neared,Arch and vault without stain or fault, by hands of craftsmen we know not reared,Time beheld them, and time was quelled; and change passed by them as one that feared.
Time that flies as a dream, and dies as dreams that die with the sleep they feed,Here alone in a garb of stone incarnate stands as a god indeed,Stern and fair, and of strength to bear all burdens mortal to man's frail seed.
Men and years are as leaves or tears that storm or sorrow is fain to shed:These go by as the winds that sigh, and none takes note of them quick or dead:Time, whose breath is their birth and death, folds here his pinions, and bows his head.
Still the sun that beheld begun the work wrought here of unwearied handsSees, as then, though the Red King's men held ruthless rule over lawless lands,Stand their massive design, impassive, pure and proud as a virgin stands.
Statelier still as the years fulfil their count, subserving her sacred state,Grows the hoary grey church whose story silence utters and age makes great:Statelier seems it than shines in dreams the face unveiled of unvanquished fate.
Fate, more high than the star-shown sky, more deep than waters unsounded, shinesKeen and far as the final star on souls that seek not for charms or signs;Yet more bright is the love-shown light of men's hands lighted in songs or shrines.
Love and trust that the grave's deep dust can soil not, neither may fear put out,Witness yet that their record set stands fast, though years be as hosts in rout,Spent and slain; but the signs remain that beat back darkness and cast forth doubt.
Men that wrought by the grace of thought and toil things goodlier than praise dare trace,Fair as all that the world may call most fair, save only the sea's own face,Shrines or songs that the world's change wrongs not, live by grace of their own gift's grace.
Dead, their names that the night reclaims—alive, their works that the day relumes—Sink and stand, as in stone and sand engraven: none may behold their tombs:Nights and days shall record their praise while here this flower of their grafting blooms.
Flower more fair than the sun-thrilled air bids laugh and lighten and wax and rise,Fruit more bright than the fervent light sustains with strength from the kindled skies,Flower and fruit that the deathless root of man's love rears though the man's name dies.
Stately stands it, the work of hands unknown of: statelier, afar and near,Rise around it the heights that bound our landward gaze from the seaboard here;Downs that swerve and aspire, in curve and change of heights that the dawn holds dear.
Dawn falls fair on the grey walls there confronting dawn, on the low green lea,Lone and sweet as for fairies' feet held sacred, silent and strange and free,Wild and wet with its rills; but yet more fair falls dawn on the fairer sea.
Eastward, round by the high green bound of hills that fold the remote fields in,Strive and shine on the low sea-line fleet waves and beams when the days begin;Westward glow, when the days burn low, the sun that yields and the stars that win.
Rose-red eve on the seas that heave sinks fair as dawn when the first ray peers;Winds are glancing from sunbright Lancing to Shoreham, crowned with the grace of years;Shoreham, clad with the sunset, glad and grave with glory that death reveres.
Death, more proud than the kings' heads bowed before him, stronger than all things, bowsHere his head: as if death were dead, and kingship plucked from his crownless brows,Life hath here such a face of cheer as change appals not and time avows.
Skies fulfilled with the sundown, stilled and splendid, spread as a flower that spreads,Pave with rarer device and fairer than heaven's the luminous oyster-beds,Grass-embanked, and in square plots ranked, inlaid with gems that the sundown sheds.
Squares more bright and with lovelier light than heaven that kindled it shines with shineWarm and soft as the dome aloft, but heavenlier yet than the sun's own shrine:Heaven is high, but the water-sky lit here seems deeper and more divine.
Flowers on flowers, that the whole world's bowers may show not, here may the sunset show,Lightly graven in the waters paven with ghostly gold by the clouds aglow:Bright as love is the vault above, but lovelier lightens the wave below.
Rosy grey, or as fiery spray full-plumed, or greener than emerald, gleamsPlot by plot as the skies allot for each its glory, divine as dreamsLit with fire of appeased desire which sounds the secret of all that seems;
Dreams that show what we fain would know, and know not save by the grace of sleep,Sleep whose hands have removed the bands that eyes long waking and fain to weepFeel fast bound on them—light around them strange, and darkness above them steep.
Yet no vision that heals division of love from love, and renews awhileLife and breath in the lips where death has quenched the spirit of speech and smile,Shows on earth, or in heaven's mid mirth, where no fears enter or doubts defile,
Aught more fair than the radiant air and water here by the twilight wed,Here made one by the waning sun whose last love quickens to rosebright redHalf the crown of the soft high down that rears to northward its wood-girt head.
There, when day is at height of sway, men's eyes who stand, as we oft have stood,High where towers with its world of flowers the golden spinny that flanks the wood,See before and around them shore and seaboard glad as their gifts are good.
Higher and higher to the north aspire the green smooth-swelling unending downs;East and west on the brave earth's breast glow girdle-jewels of gleaming towns;Southward shining, the lands declining subside in peace that the sea's light crowns.
Westward wide in its fruitful pride the plain lies lordly with plenteous grace;Fair as dawn's when the fields and lawns desire her glitters the glad land's face:Eastward yet is the sole sign set of elder days and a lordlier race.
Down beneath us afar, where seethe in wilder weather the tides aflow,Hurled up hither and drawn down thither in quest of rest that they may not know,Still as dew on a flower the blue broad stream now sleeps in the fields below.
Mild and bland in the fair green land it smiles, and takes to its heart the sky;Scarce the meads and the fens, the reeds and grasses, still as they stand or lie,Wear the palm of a statelier calm than rests on waters that pass them by.
Yet shall these, when the winds and seas of equal days and coequal nightsRage, rejoice, and uplift a voice whose sound is even as a sword that smites,Felt and heard as a doomsman's word from seaward reaches to landward heights,
Lift their heart up, and take their part of triumph, swollen and strong with rage,Rage elate with desire and great with pride that tempest and storm assuage;So their chime in the ear of time has rung from age to rekindled age.
Fair and dear is the land's face here, and fair man's work as a man's may be:Dear and fair as the sunbright air is here the record that speaks him free;Free by birth of a sacred earth, and regent ever of all the sea.
IIs it Midsummer here in the heavens that illumine October on earth?Can the year, when his heart is fulfilled with desire of the days of his mirth,Redeem them, recall, or remember?For a memory recalling the rapture of earth, and redeeming the sky,Shines down from the heights to the depths: will the watchword of dawn be JulyWhen to-morrow acclaims November?The stern salutation of sorrow to death or repentance to shameWas all that the season was wont to accord her of grace or acclaim;No lightnings of love and of laughter.But here, in the laugh of the loud west wind from around and above,In the flash of the waters beneath him, what sound or what light but of loveRings round him or leaps forth after?IIWind beloved of earth and sky and sea beyond all winds that blow,Wind whose might in fight was England's on her mightiest warrior day,South-west wind, whose breath for her was life, and fire to scourge her foe,Steel to smite and death to drive him down an unreturning way,Well-beloved and welcome, sounding all the clarions of the sky,Rolling all the marshalled waters toward the charge that storms the shore,We receive, acclaim, salute thee, we who live and dream and die,As the mightiest mouth of song that ever spake acclaimed of yore.We that live as they that perish praise thee, lord of cloud and wave,Wind of winds, clothed on with darkness whence as lightning light comes forth,We that know thee strong to guard and smite, to scatter and to save,We to whom the south-west wind is dear as Athens held the north.He for her waged war as thou for us against all powers defiant,Fleets full-fraught with storm from Persia, laden deep with death from Spain:Thee the giant god of song and battle hailed as god and giant,Yet not his but ours the land is whence thy praise should ring and rain;Rain as rapture shed from song, and ring as trumpets blown for battle,Sound and sing before thee, loud and glad as leaps and sinks the sea:Yea, the sea's white steeds are curbed and spurred of thee, and pent as cattle,Yet they laugh with love and pride to live, subdued not save of thee.Ears that hear thee hear in heaven the sound of widening wings gigantic,Eyes that see the cloud-lift westward see thy darkening brows divine;Wings whose measure is the limit of the limitless Atlantic,Brows that bend, and bid the sovereign sea submit her soul to thine.IIITwelve days since is it—twelve days gone,Lord of storm, that a storm-bow shoneHigher than sweeps thy sublime dark wing,Fair as dawn is and sweet like spring?Never dawn in the deep wide eastSpread so splendid and strange a feast,Whence the soul as it drank and fedFelt such rapture of wonder shed.Never spring in the wild wood's heartFelt such flowers at her footfall start,Born of earth, as arose on sightBorn of heaven and of storm and light.Stern and sullen, the grey grim seaSwelled and strove as in toils, though free,Free as heaven, and as heaven sublime,Clear as heaven of the toils of time.IVSuddenly, sheer from the heights to the depths of the sky and the sea,Sprang from the darkness alive as a vision of life to beGlory triune and transcendent of colour afar and afire,Arching and darkening the darkness with light as of dream or desire.Heaven, in the depth of its height, shone wistful and wan from above:Earth from beneath, and the sea, shone stricken and breathless with love.As a shadow may shine, so shone they; as ghosts of the viewless blest,That sleep hath sight of alive in a rapture of sunbright rest,The green earth glowed and the grey sky gleamed for a wondrous while;And the storm's full frown was crossed by the light of its own deep smile.As the darkness of thought and of passion is touched by the light that givesLife deathless as love from the depth of a spirit that sees and lives,From the soul of a seer and a singer, wherein as a scroll unfurledLies open the scripture of light and of darkness, the word of the world,So, shapeless and measureless, lurid as anguish and haggard as crime,Pale as the front of oblivion and dark as the heart of time,The wild wan heaven at its height was assailed and subdued and madeMore fair than the skies that know not of storm and endure not shade.The grim sea-swell, grey, sleepless, and sad as a soul estranged,Shone, smiled, took heart, and was glad of its wrath: and the world's face changed.VUp from moorlands northward gleamingEven to heaven's transcendent height,Clothed with massive cloud, and seemingAll one fortress reared of night,Down to where the deep sea, dreamingAngry dreams, lay dark and white,White as death and dark as fate,Heaving with the strong wind's weight,Sad with stormy pride of state,One full rainbow shone elate.Up from inmost memory's dwellingWhere the light of life abides,Where the past finds tongue, foretellingTime that comes and grace that guides,Power that saves and sways, compellingSouls that ebb and flow like tides,Shone or seemed to shine and swimThrough the cloud-surf great and grim,Thought's live surge, the soul of himBy whose light the sun looks dim.In what synod were they sitting,All the gods and lords of time,Whence they watched as fen-fires flittingYears and names of men sublime,When their counsels found it fittingOne should stand where none might climb—None of man begotten, noneBorn of men beneath the sunTill the race of time be run,Save this heaven-enfranchised one?With what rapture of creationWas the soul supernal thrilled,With what pride of adorationWas the world's heart fired and filled,Heaved in heavenward exaltationHigher than hopes or dreams might build,Grave with awe not known while heWas not, mad with glorious gleeAs the sun-saluted sea,When his hour bade Shakespeare be?VIThere, clear as night beholds her crowning seven,The sea beheld his likeness set in heaven.The shadow of his spirit full in sightShone: for the shadow of that soul is light.Nor heaven alone bore witness: earth avowedHim present, and acclaimed of storm aloud.From the arching sky to the ageless hills and seaThe whole world, visible, audible, was he:Each part of all that wove that wondrous wholeThe raiment of the presence of his soul.The sun that smote and kissed the dark to deathSpake, smiled, and strove, like song's triumphant breath;The soundless cloud whose thunderous heart was dumbSwelled, lowered, and shrank to feel its conqueror come.Yet high from heaven its empire vast and vainFrowned, and renounced not night's reluctant reign.The serpentine swift sounds and shapes whereinThe stainless sea mocks earth and death and sin,Crawls dark as craft, or flashes keen as hate,Subdued and insubmissive, strong like fateAnd weak like man, bore wrathful witness yetThat storms and sins are more than suns that set;That evil everlasting, girt for strifeEternal, wars with hope as death with life.The dark sharp shifting wind that bade the wavesFalter, lose heart, bow down like foes made slaves,And waxed within more bitter as they bowed,Baffling the sea, swallowing the sun with cloud,Devouring fast as fire on earth devoursAnd hungering hard as frost that feeds on flowers,Clothed round with fog that reeked as fume from hell,And darkening with its miscreative spellLight, glad and keen and splendid as the swordWhose heft had known Othello's hand its lord,Spake all the soul that hell drew back to greetAnd felt its fire shrink shuddering from his feet.Far off the darkness darkened, and recoiled,And neared again, and triumphed: and the coiledColourless cloud and sea discoloured grewConscious of horror huge as heaven, and knewWhere Goneril's soul made chill and foul the mist,And all the leprous life in Regan hissed.Fierce homeless ghosts, rejected of the pit,From hell to hell of storm fear watched them flit.About them and before, the dull grey gloomShuddered, and heaven seemed hateful as the tombThat shrinks from resurrection; and from outThat sullen hell which girt their shades aboutThe nether soul that lurks and lowers withinMan, made of dust and fire and shame and sin,Breathed: all the cloud that felt it breathe and blightWas blue as plague or black as thunderous night.Elect of hell, the children of his hateThronged, as to storm sweet heaven's triumphal gate.The terror of his giving rose and shoneImminent: life had put its likeness on.But higher than all its horrent height of shadeShone sovereign, seen by light itself had made,Above the woes of all the world, aboveLife, sin, and death, his myriad-minded love.From landward heights whereon the radiance leantFull-fraught from heaven, intense and imminent,To depths wherein the seething strengths of cloudScarce matched the wrath of waves whereon they bowed,From homeborn pride and kindling love of homeTo the outer skies and seas of fire and foam,From splendour soft as dew that sundawn thrillsTo gloom that shudders round the world it fills,From midnights murmuring round Titania's earTo midnights maddening round the rage of Lear,The wonder woven of storm and sun becameOne with the light that lightens from his name.The music moving on the sea that feltThe storm-wind even as snows of springtide meltWas blithe as Ariel's hand or voice might makeAnd bid all grief die gladly for its sake.And there the soul alive in ear and eyeThat watched the wonders of an hour pass bySaw brighter than all stars that heaven inspheresThe silent splendour of Cordelia's tears,Felt in the whispers of the quickening windThe radiance of the laugh of Rosalind,And heard, in sounds that melt the souls of menWith love of love, the tune of Imogen.VIIFor the strong north-east is not strong to subdue and to slay the divine south-west,And the darkness is less than the light that it darkens, and dies in reluctant rest.It hovers and hangs on the labouring and trembling ascent of the dawn from the deep,Till the sun's eye quicken the world and the waters, and smite it again into sleep.Night, holy and starry, the fostress of souls, with the fragrance of heaven in her breath,Subdues with the sense of her godhead the forces and mysteries of sorrow and death.Eternal as dawn's is the comfort she gives: but the mist that beleaguers and slaysComes, passes, and is not: the strength of it withers, appalled or assuaged by the day's.Faith, haggard as Fear that had borne her, and dark as the sire that begat her, Despair,Held rule on the soul of the world and the song of it saddening through ages that were;Dim centuries that darkened and brightened and darkened again, and the soul of their songWas great as their grief, and sublime as their suffering, and strong as their sorrows were strong.It knew not, it saw not, but shadows triune, and evoked by the strength of their spellDark hell, and the mountain of anguish, and heaven that was hollower and harder than hell.These are not: the womb of the darkness that bare them rejects them, and knows them no more:Thought, fettered in misery and iron, revives in the light that it lived in of yore.For the soul that is wisdom and freedom, the spirit of England redeemed from her past,Speaks life through the lips of the master and lord of her children, the first and the last.Thought, touched by his hand and redeemed by his breath, sees, hears, and accepts from aboveThe limitless lightnings of vision and passion, the measureless music of love.
I
Is it Midsummer here in the heavens that illumine October on earth?Can the year, when his heart is fulfilled with desire of the days of his mirth,Redeem them, recall, or remember?For a memory recalling the rapture of earth, and redeeming the sky,Shines down from the heights to the depths: will the watchword of dawn be JulyWhen to-morrow acclaims November?The stern salutation of sorrow to death or repentance to shameWas all that the season was wont to accord her of grace or acclaim;No lightnings of love and of laughter.But here, in the laugh of the loud west wind from around and above,In the flash of the waters beneath him, what sound or what light but of loveRings round him or leaps forth after?
II
Wind beloved of earth and sky and sea beyond all winds that blow,Wind whose might in fight was England's on her mightiest warrior day,South-west wind, whose breath for her was life, and fire to scourge her foe,Steel to smite and death to drive him down an unreturning way,Well-beloved and welcome, sounding all the clarions of the sky,Rolling all the marshalled waters toward the charge that storms the shore,We receive, acclaim, salute thee, we who live and dream and die,As the mightiest mouth of song that ever spake acclaimed of yore.We that live as they that perish praise thee, lord of cloud and wave,Wind of winds, clothed on with darkness whence as lightning light comes forth,We that know thee strong to guard and smite, to scatter and to save,We to whom the south-west wind is dear as Athens held the north.He for her waged war as thou for us against all powers defiant,Fleets full-fraught with storm from Persia, laden deep with death from Spain:Thee the giant god of song and battle hailed as god and giant,Yet not his but ours the land is whence thy praise should ring and rain;Rain as rapture shed from song, and ring as trumpets blown for battle,Sound and sing before thee, loud and glad as leaps and sinks the sea:Yea, the sea's white steeds are curbed and spurred of thee, and pent as cattle,Yet they laugh with love and pride to live, subdued not save of thee.Ears that hear thee hear in heaven the sound of widening wings gigantic,Eyes that see the cloud-lift westward see thy darkening brows divine;Wings whose measure is the limit of the limitless Atlantic,Brows that bend, and bid the sovereign sea submit her soul to thine.
III
Twelve days since is it—twelve days gone,Lord of storm, that a storm-bow shoneHigher than sweeps thy sublime dark wing,Fair as dawn is and sweet like spring?
Never dawn in the deep wide eastSpread so splendid and strange a feast,Whence the soul as it drank and fedFelt such rapture of wonder shed.
Never spring in the wild wood's heartFelt such flowers at her footfall start,Born of earth, as arose on sightBorn of heaven and of storm and light.
Stern and sullen, the grey grim seaSwelled and strove as in toils, though free,Free as heaven, and as heaven sublime,Clear as heaven of the toils of time.
IV
Suddenly, sheer from the heights to the depths of the sky and the sea,Sprang from the darkness alive as a vision of life to beGlory triune and transcendent of colour afar and afire,Arching and darkening the darkness with light as of dream or desire.Heaven, in the depth of its height, shone wistful and wan from above:Earth from beneath, and the sea, shone stricken and breathless with love.As a shadow may shine, so shone they; as ghosts of the viewless blest,That sleep hath sight of alive in a rapture of sunbright rest,The green earth glowed and the grey sky gleamed for a wondrous while;And the storm's full frown was crossed by the light of its own deep smile.As the darkness of thought and of passion is touched by the light that givesLife deathless as love from the depth of a spirit that sees and lives,From the soul of a seer and a singer, wherein as a scroll unfurledLies open the scripture of light and of darkness, the word of the world,So, shapeless and measureless, lurid as anguish and haggard as crime,Pale as the front of oblivion and dark as the heart of time,The wild wan heaven at its height was assailed and subdued and madeMore fair than the skies that know not of storm and endure not shade.The grim sea-swell, grey, sleepless, and sad as a soul estranged,Shone, smiled, took heart, and was glad of its wrath: and the world's face changed.
V
Up from moorlands northward gleamingEven to heaven's transcendent height,Clothed with massive cloud, and seemingAll one fortress reared of night,Down to where the deep sea, dreamingAngry dreams, lay dark and white,White as death and dark as fate,Heaving with the strong wind's weight,Sad with stormy pride of state,One full rainbow shone elate.
Up from inmost memory's dwellingWhere the light of life abides,Where the past finds tongue, foretellingTime that comes and grace that guides,Power that saves and sways, compellingSouls that ebb and flow like tides,Shone or seemed to shine and swimThrough the cloud-surf great and grim,Thought's live surge, the soul of himBy whose light the sun looks dim.
In what synod were they sitting,All the gods and lords of time,Whence they watched as fen-fires flittingYears and names of men sublime,When their counsels found it fittingOne should stand where none might climb—None of man begotten, noneBorn of men beneath the sunTill the race of time be run,Save this heaven-enfranchised one?
With what rapture of creationWas the soul supernal thrilled,With what pride of adorationWas the world's heart fired and filled,Heaved in heavenward exaltationHigher than hopes or dreams might build,Grave with awe not known while heWas not, mad with glorious gleeAs the sun-saluted sea,When his hour bade Shakespeare be?
VI
There, clear as night beholds her crowning seven,The sea beheld his likeness set in heaven.The shadow of his spirit full in sightShone: for the shadow of that soul is light.Nor heaven alone bore witness: earth avowedHim present, and acclaimed of storm aloud.From the arching sky to the ageless hills and seaThe whole world, visible, audible, was he:Each part of all that wove that wondrous wholeThe raiment of the presence of his soul.The sun that smote and kissed the dark to deathSpake, smiled, and strove, like song's triumphant breath;The soundless cloud whose thunderous heart was dumbSwelled, lowered, and shrank to feel its conqueror come.Yet high from heaven its empire vast and vainFrowned, and renounced not night's reluctant reign.The serpentine swift sounds and shapes whereinThe stainless sea mocks earth and death and sin,Crawls dark as craft, or flashes keen as hate,Subdued and insubmissive, strong like fateAnd weak like man, bore wrathful witness yetThat storms and sins are more than suns that set;That evil everlasting, girt for strifeEternal, wars with hope as death with life.The dark sharp shifting wind that bade the wavesFalter, lose heart, bow down like foes made slaves,And waxed within more bitter as they bowed,Baffling the sea, swallowing the sun with cloud,Devouring fast as fire on earth devoursAnd hungering hard as frost that feeds on flowers,Clothed round with fog that reeked as fume from hell,And darkening with its miscreative spellLight, glad and keen and splendid as the swordWhose heft had known Othello's hand its lord,Spake all the soul that hell drew back to greetAnd felt its fire shrink shuddering from his feet.Far off the darkness darkened, and recoiled,And neared again, and triumphed: and the coiledColourless cloud and sea discoloured grewConscious of horror huge as heaven, and knewWhere Goneril's soul made chill and foul the mist,And all the leprous life in Regan hissed.Fierce homeless ghosts, rejected of the pit,From hell to hell of storm fear watched them flit.About them and before, the dull grey gloomShuddered, and heaven seemed hateful as the tombThat shrinks from resurrection; and from outThat sullen hell which girt their shades aboutThe nether soul that lurks and lowers withinMan, made of dust and fire and shame and sin,Breathed: all the cloud that felt it breathe and blightWas blue as plague or black as thunderous night.Elect of hell, the children of his hateThronged, as to storm sweet heaven's triumphal gate.The terror of his giving rose and shoneImminent: life had put its likeness on.But higher than all its horrent height of shadeShone sovereign, seen by light itself had made,Above the woes of all the world, aboveLife, sin, and death, his myriad-minded love.From landward heights whereon the radiance leantFull-fraught from heaven, intense and imminent,To depths wherein the seething strengths of cloudScarce matched the wrath of waves whereon they bowed,From homeborn pride and kindling love of homeTo the outer skies and seas of fire and foam,From splendour soft as dew that sundawn thrillsTo gloom that shudders round the world it fills,From midnights murmuring round Titania's earTo midnights maddening round the rage of Lear,The wonder woven of storm and sun becameOne with the light that lightens from his name.The music moving on the sea that feltThe storm-wind even as snows of springtide meltWas blithe as Ariel's hand or voice might makeAnd bid all grief die gladly for its sake.And there the soul alive in ear and eyeThat watched the wonders of an hour pass bySaw brighter than all stars that heaven inspheresThe silent splendour of Cordelia's tears,Felt in the whispers of the quickening windThe radiance of the laugh of Rosalind,And heard, in sounds that melt the souls of menWith love of love, the tune of Imogen.
VII
For the strong north-east is not strong to subdue and to slay the divine south-west,And the darkness is less than the light that it darkens, and dies in reluctant rest.It hovers and hangs on the labouring and trembling ascent of the dawn from the deep,Till the sun's eye quicken the world and the waters, and smite it again into sleep.Night, holy and starry, the fostress of souls, with the fragrance of heaven in her breath,Subdues with the sense of her godhead the forces and mysteries of sorrow and death.Eternal as dawn's is the comfort she gives: but the mist that beleaguers and slaysComes, passes, and is not: the strength of it withers, appalled or assuaged by the day's.Faith, haggard as Fear that had borne her, and dark as the sire that begat her, Despair,Held rule on the soul of the world and the song of it saddening through ages that were;Dim centuries that darkened and brightened and darkened again, and the soul of their songWas great as their grief, and sublime as their suffering, and strong as their sorrows were strong.It knew not, it saw not, but shadows triune, and evoked by the strength of their spellDark hell, and the mountain of anguish, and heaven that was hollower and harder than hell.These are not: the womb of the darkness that bare them rejects them, and knows them no more:Thought, fettered in misery and iron, revives in the light that it lived in of yore.For the soul that is wisdom and freedom, the spirit of England redeemed from her past,Speaks life through the lips of the master and lord of her children, the first and the last.Thought, touched by his hand and redeemed by his breath, sees, hears, and accepts from aboveThe limitless lightnings of vision and passion, the measureless music of love.
Somno mollior unda
IDawn is dim on the dark soft water,Soft and passionate, dark and sweet.Love's own self was the deep sea's daughter,Fair and flawless from face to feet,Hailed of all when the world was golden,Loved of lovers whose names beholdenThrill men's eyes as with light of oldenDays more glad than their flight was fleet.So they sang: but for men that love her,Souls that hear not her word in vain,Earth beside her and heaven above herSeem but shadows that wax and wane.Softer than sleep's are the sea's caresses,Kinder than love's that betrays and blesses,Blither than spring's when her flowerful tressesShake forth sunlight and shine with rain.All the strength of the waves that perishSwells beneath me and laughs and sighs,Sighs for love of the life they cherish,Laughs to know that it lives and dies,Dies for joy of its life, and livesThrilled with joy that its brief death gives—Death whose laugh or whose breath forgivesChange that bids it subside and rise.IIHard and heavy, remote but nearing,Sunless hangs the severe sky's weight,Cloud on cloud, though the wind be veeringHeaped on high to the sundawn's gate.Dawn and even and noon are one,Veiled with vapour and void of sun;Nought in sight or in fancied hearingNow less mighty than time or fate.The grey sky gleams and the grey seas glimmer,Pale and sweet as a dream's delight,As a dream's where darkness and light seem dimmer,Touched by dawn or subdued by night.The dark wind, stern and sublime and sad,Swings the rollers to westward, cladWith lustrous shadow that lures the swimmer,Lures and lulls him with dreams of light.Light, and sleep, and delight, and wonder,Change, and rest, and a charm of cloud,Fill the world of the skies whereunderHeaves and quivers and pants aloudAll the world of the waters, hoaryNow, but clothed with its own live glory,That mates the lightning and mocks the thunderWith light more living and word more proud.IIIFar off westward, whither sets the sounding strife,Strife more sweet than peace, of shoreless waves whose gleeScorns the shore and loves the wind that leaves them free,Strange as sleep and pale as death and fair as life,Shifts the moonlight-coloured sunshine on the sea.Toward the sunset's goal the sunless waters crowd,Fast as autumn days toward winter: yet it seemsHere that autumn wanes not, here that woods and streamsLose not heart and change not likeness, chilled and bowed,Warped and wrinkled: here the days are fair as dreams.IVO russet-robed November,What ails thee so to smile?Chill August, pale September,Endured a woful while,And fell as falls an emberFrom forth a flameless pile:But golden-girt NovemberBids all she looks on smile.The lustrous foliage, waningAs wanes the morning moon,Here falling, here refraining,Outbraves the pride of JuneWith statelier semblance, feigningNo fear lest death be soon:As though the woods thus waningShould wax to meet the moon.As though, when fields lie strickenBy grey December's breath,These lordlier growths that sickenAnd die for fear of deathShould feel the sense requickenThat hears what springtide saithAnd thrills for love, spring-strickenAnd pierced with April's breath.The keen white-winged north-easterThat stings and spurs thy seaDoth yet but feed and feast herWith glowing sense of glee:Calm chained her, storm released her,And storm's glad voice was he:South-wester or north-easter,Thy winds rejoice the sea.VA dream, a dream is it all—the season,The sky, the water, the wind, the shore?A day-born dream of divine unreason,A marvel moulded of sleep—no more?For the cloudlike wave that my limbs while cleavingFeel as in slumber beneath them heavingSoothes the sense as to slumber, leavingSense of nought that was known of yore.A purer passion, a lordlier leisure,A peace more happy than lives on land,Fulfils with pulse of diviner pleasureThe dreaming head and the steering hand.I lean my cheek to the cold grey pillow,The deep soft swell of the full broad billow,And close mine eyes for delight past measure,And wish the wheel of the world would stand.The wild-winged hour that we fain would captureFalls as from heaven that its light feet clomb,So brief, so soft, and so full the raptureWas felt that soothed me with sense of home.To sleep, to swim, and to dream, for ever—Such joy the vision of man saw never;For here too soon will a dark day severThe sea-bird's wing from the sea-wave's foam.A dream, and more than a dream, and dimmerAt once and brighter than dreams that flee,The moment's joy of the seaward swimmerAbides, remembered as truth may be.Not all the joy and not all the gloryMust fade as leaves when the woods wax hoary;For there the downs and the sea-banks glimmer,And here to south of them swells the sea.
I
Dawn is dim on the dark soft water,Soft and passionate, dark and sweet.Love's own self was the deep sea's daughter,Fair and flawless from face to feet,Hailed of all when the world was golden,Loved of lovers whose names beholdenThrill men's eyes as with light of oldenDays more glad than their flight was fleet.
So they sang: but for men that love her,Souls that hear not her word in vain,Earth beside her and heaven above herSeem but shadows that wax and wane.Softer than sleep's are the sea's caresses,Kinder than love's that betrays and blesses,Blither than spring's when her flowerful tressesShake forth sunlight and shine with rain.
All the strength of the waves that perishSwells beneath me and laughs and sighs,Sighs for love of the life they cherish,Laughs to know that it lives and dies,Dies for joy of its life, and livesThrilled with joy that its brief death gives—Death whose laugh or whose breath forgivesChange that bids it subside and rise.
II
Hard and heavy, remote but nearing,Sunless hangs the severe sky's weight,Cloud on cloud, though the wind be veeringHeaped on high to the sundawn's gate.Dawn and even and noon are one,Veiled with vapour and void of sun;Nought in sight or in fancied hearingNow less mighty than time or fate.
The grey sky gleams and the grey seas glimmer,Pale and sweet as a dream's delight,As a dream's where darkness and light seem dimmer,Touched by dawn or subdued by night.The dark wind, stern and sublime and sad,Swings the rollers to westward, cladWith lustrous shadow that lures the swimmer,Lures and lulls him with dreams of light.
Light, and sleep, and delight, and wonder,Change, and rest, and a charm of cloud,Fill the world of the skies whereunderHeaves and quivers and pants aloudAll the world of the waters, hoaryNow, but clothed with its own live glory,That mates the lightning and mocks the thunderWith light more living and word more proud.
III
Far off westward, whither sets the sounding strife,Strife more sweet than peace, of shoreless waves whose gleeScorns the shore and loves the wind that leaves them free,Strange as sleep and pale as death and fair as life,Shifts the moonlight-coloured sunshine on the sea.
Toward the sunset's goal the sunless waters crowd,Fast as autumn days toward winter: yet it seemsHere that autumn wanes not, here that woods and streamsLose not heart and change not likeness, chilled and bowed,Warped and wrinkled: here the days are fair as dreams.
IV
O russet-robed November,What ails thee so to smile?Chill August, pale September,Endured a woful while,And fell as falls an emberFrom forth a flameless pile:But golden-girt NovemberBids all she looks on smile.
The lustrous foliage, waningAs wanes the morning moon,Here falling, here refraining,Outbraves the pride of JuneWith statelier semblance, feigningNo fear lest death be soon:As though the woods thus waningShould wax to meet the moon.
As though, when fields lie strickenBy grey December's breath,These lordlier growths that sickenAnd die for fear of deathShould feel the sense requickenThat hears what springtide saithAnd thrills for love, spring-strickenAnd pierced with April's breath.
The keen white-winged north-easterThat stings and spurs thy seaDoth yet but feed and feast herWith glowing sense of glee:Calm chained her, storm released her,And storm's glad voice was he:South-wester or north-easter,Thy winds rejoice the sea.
V
A dream, a dream is it all—the season,The sky, the water, the wind, the shore?A day-born dream of divine unreason,A marvel moulded of sleep—no more?For the cloudlike wave that my limbs while cleavingFeel as in slumber beneath them heavingSoothes the sense as to slumber, leavingSense of nought that was known of yore.
A purer passion, a lordlier leisure,A peace more happy than lives on land,Fulfils with pulse of diviner pleasureThe dreaming head and the steering hand.I lean my cheek to the cold grey pillow,The deep soft swell of the full broad billow,And close mine eyes for delight past measure,And wish the wheel of the world would stand.
The wild-winged hour that we fain would captureFalls as from heaven that its light feet clomb,So brief, so soft, and so full the raptureWas felt that soothed me with sense of home.To sleep, to swim, and to dream, for ever—Such joy the vision of man saw never;For here too soon will a dark day severThe sea-bird's wing from the sea-wave's foam.
A dream, and more than a dream, and dimmerAt once and brighter than dreams that flee,The moment's joy of the seaward swimmerAbides, remembered as truth may be.Not all the joy and not all the gloryMust fade as leaves when the woods wax hoary;For there the downs and the sea-banks glimmer,And here to south of them swells the sea.
Take, O star of all our seas, from not an alien hand,Homage paid of song bowed down before thy glory's face,Thou the living light of all our lovely stormy strand,Thou the brave north-country's very glory of glories, Grace.Loud and dark about the lighthouse rings and glares the night;Glares with foam-lit gloom and darkling fire of storm and spray,Rings with roar of winds in chase and rage of waves in flight,Howls and hisses as with mouths of snakes and wolves at bay.Scarce the cliffs of the islets, scarce the walls of Joyous Gard,Flash to sight between the deadlier lightnings of the sea:Storm is lord and master of a midnight evil-starred,Nor may sight or fear discern what evil stars may be.Dark as death and white as snow the sea-swell scowls and shines,Heaves and yearns and pants for prey, from ravening lip to lip,Strong in rage of rapturous anguish, lines on hurtling lines,Ranks on charging ranks, that break and rend the battling ship.All the night is mad and murderous: who shall front the night?Not the prow that labours, helpless as a storm-blown leaf,Where the rocks and waters, darkling depth and beetling height,Rage with wave on shattering wave and thundering reef on reef.Death is fallen upon the prisoners there of darkness, boundLike as thralls with links of iron fast in bonds of doom;How shall any way to break the bands of death be found,Any hand avail to pluck them from that raging tomb?All the night is great with child of death: no stars aboveShow them hope in heaven, no lights from shores ward help on earth.Is there help or hope to seaward, is there help in love,Hope in pity, where the ravening hounds of storm make mirth?Where the light but shows the naked eyeless face of DeathNearer, laughing dumb and grim across the loud live storm?Not in human heart or hand or speech of human breath,Surely, nor in saviours found of mortal face or form.Yet below the light, between the reefs, a skiff shot outSeems a sea-bird fain to breast and brave the strait fierce passWhence the channelled roar of waters driven in raging rout,Pent and pressed and maddened, speaks their monstrous might and mass.Thunder heaves and howls about them, lightning leaps and flashes,Hard at hand, not high in heaven, but close between the wallsHeaped and hollowed of the storms of old, whence reels and crashesAll the rage of all the unbaffled wave that breaks and falls.Who shall thwart the madness and the gladness of it, ladenFull with heavy fate, and joyous as the birds that whirl?Nought in heaven or earth, if not one mortal-moulded maiden,Nought if not the soul that glorifies a northland girl.Not the rocks that break may baffle, not the reefs that thwartStay the ravenous rapture of the waves that crowd and leap;Scarce their flashing laughter shows the hunger of their heart,Scarce their lion-throated roar the wrath at heart they keep.Child and man and woman in the grasp of death clenched fastTremble, clothed with darkness round about, and scarce draw breath,Scarce lift eyes up toward the light that saves not, scarce may castThought or prayer up, caught and trammelled in the snare of death.Not as sea-mews cling and laugh or sun their plumes and sleepCling and cower the wild night's waifs of shipwreck, blind with fear,Where the fierce reef scarce yields foothold that a bird might keep,And the clamorous darkness deadens eye and deafens ear.Yet beyond their helpless hearing, out of hopeless sight,Saviours, armed and girt upon with strength of heart, fare forth,Sire and daughter, hand on oar and face against the night,Maid and man whose names are beacons ever to the North.Nearer now; but all the madness of the storming surfHounds and roars them back; but roars and hounds them back in vain:As a pleasure-skiff may graze the lake-embanking turf,So the boat that bears them grates the rock where-toward they strain.Dawn as fierce and haggard as the face of night scarce guidesToward the cries that rent and clove the darkness, crying for aid,Hours on hours, across the engorged reluctance of the tides,Sire and daughter, high-souled man and mightier-hearted maid.Not the bravest land that ever breasted war's grim sea,Hurled her foes back harried on the lowlands whence they came,Held her own and smote her smiters down, while such durst be,Shining northward, shining southward, as the aurorean flame,Not our mother, not Northumberland, brought ever forth,Though no southern shore may match the sons that kiss her mouth,Children worthier all the birthright given of the ardent northWhere the fire of hearts outburns the suns that fire the south.Even such fire was this that lit them, not from lowering skiesWhere the darkling dawn flagged, stricken in the sun's own shrine,Down the gulf of storm subsiding, till their earnest eyesFind the relics of the ravening night that spared but nine.Life by life the man redeems them, head by storm-worn head,While the girl's hand stays the boat whereof the waves are fain:Ah, but woe for one, the mother clasping fast her dead!Happier, had the surges slain her with her children slain.Back they bear, and bring between them safe the woful nine,Where above the ravenous Hawkers fixed at watch for preyStorm and calm behold the Longstone's towering signal shineNow as when that labouring night brought forth a shuddering day.Now as then, though like the hounds of storm against her snarlingAll the clamorous years between us storm down many a fame,As our sires beheld before us we behold Grace DarlingCrowned and throned our queen, and as they hailed we hail her name.Nay, not ours alone, her kinsfolk born, though chiefliest ours,East and west and south acclaim her queen of England's maids,Star more sweet than all their stars and flower than all their flowers,Higher in heaven and earth than star that sets or flower that fades.How should land or sea that nurtured her forget, or loveHold not fast her fame for us while aught is borne in mind?Land and sea beneath us, sun and moon and stars above,Bear the bright soul witness, seen of all but souls born blind.Stars and moon and sun may wax and wane, subside and rise,Age on age as flake on flake of showering snows be shed:Not till earth be sunless, not till death strike blind the skies,May the deathless love that waits on deathless deeds be dead.Years on years have withered since beside the hearth once thineI, too young to have seen thee, touched thy father's hallowed hand:Thee and him shall all men see for ever, stars that shineWhile the sea that spared thee girds and glorifies the land.
Take, O star of all our seas, from not an alien hand,Homage paid of song bowed down before thy glory's face,Thou the living light of all our lovely stormy strand,Thou the brave north-country's very glory of glories, Grace.
Loud and dark about the lighthouse rings and glares the night;Glares with foam-lit gloom and darkling fire of storm and spray,Rings with roar of winds in chase and rage of waves in flight,Howls and hisses as with mouths of snakes and wolves at bay.Scarce the cliffs of the islets, scarce the walls of Joyous Gard,Flash to sight between the deadlier lightnings of the sea:Storm is lord and master of a midnight evil-starred,Nor may sight or fear discern what evil stars may be.Dark as death and white as snow the sea-swell scowls and shines,Heaves and yearns and pants for prey, from ravening lip to lip,Strong in rage of rapturous anguish, lines on hurtling lines,Ranks on charging ranks, that break and rend the battling ship.All the night is mad and murderous: who shall front the night?Not the prow that labours, helpless as a storm-blown leaf,Where the rocks and waters, darkling depth and beetling height,Rage with wave on shattering wave and thundering reef on reef.Death is fallen upon the prisoners there of darkness, boundLike as thralls with links of iron fast in bonds of doom;How shall any way to break the bands of death be found,Any hand avail to pluck them from that raging tomb?All the night is great with child of death: no stars aboveShow them hope in heaven, no lights from shores ward help on earth.Is there help or hope to seaward, is there help in love,Hope in pity, where the ravening hounds of storm make mirth?Where the light but shows the naked eyeless face of DeathNearer, laughing dumb and grim across the loud live storm?Not in human heart or hand or speech of human breath,Surely, nor in saviours found of mortal face or form.Yet below the light, between the reefs, a skiff shot outSeems a sea-bird fain to breast and brave the strait fierce passWhence the channelled roar of waters driven in raging rout,Pent and pressed and maddened, speaks their monstrous might and mass.Thunder heaves and howls about them, lightning leaps and flashes,Hard at hand, not high in heaven, but close between the wallsHeaped and hollowed of the storms of old, whence reels and crashesAll the rage of all the unbaffled wave that breaks and falls.Who shall thwart the madness and the gladness of it, ladenFull with heavy fate, and joyous as the birds that whirl?Nought in heaven or earth, if not one mortal-moulded maiden,Nought if not the soul that glorifies a northland girl.Not the rocks that break may baffle, not the reefs that thwartStay the ravenous rapture of the waves that crowd and leap;Scarce their flashing laughter shows the hunger of their heart,Scarce their lion-throated roar the wrath at heart they keep.Child and man and woman in the grasp of death clenched fastTremble, clothed with darkness round about, and scarce draw breath,Scarce lift eyes up toward the light that saves not, scarce may castThought or prayer up, caught and trammelled in the snare of death.Not as sea-mews cling and laugh or sun their plumes and sleepCling and cower the wild night's waifs of shipwreck, blind with fear,Where the fierce reef scarce yields foothold that a bird might keep,And the clamorous darkness deadens eye and deafens ear.Yet beyond their helpless hearing, out of hopeless sight,Saviours, armed and girt upon with strength of heart, fare forth,Sire and daughter, hand on oar and face against the night,Maid and man whose names are beacons ever to the North.Nearer now; but all the madness of the storming surfHounds and roars them back; but roars and hounds them back in vain:As a pleasure-skiff may graze the lake-embanking turf,So the boat that bears them grates the rock where-toward they strain.Dawn as fierce and haggard as the face of night scarce guidesToward the cries that rent and clove the darkness, crying for aid,Hours on hours, across the engorged reluctance of the tides,Sire and daughter, high-souled man and mightier-hearted maid.Not the bravest land that ever breasted war's grim sea,Hurled her foes back harried on the lowlands whence they came,Held her own and smote her smiters down, while such durst be,Shining northward, shining southward, as the aurorean flame,Not our mother, not Northumberland, brought ever forth,Though no southern shore may match the sons that kiss her mouth,Children worthier all the birthright given of the ardent northWhere the fire of hearts outburns the suns that fire the south.Even such fire was this that lit them, not from lowering skiesWhere the darkling dawn flagged, stricken in the sun's own shrine,Down the gulf of storm subsiding, till their earnest eyesFind the relics of the ravening night that spared but nine.Life by life the man redeems them, head by storm-worn head,While the girl's hand stays the boat whereof the waves are fain:Ah, but woe for one, the mother clasping fast her dead!Happier, had the surges slain her with her children slain.Back they bear, and bring between them safe the woful nine,Where above the ravenous Hawkers fixed at watch for preyStorm and calm behold the Longstone's towering signal shineNow as when that labouring night brought forth a shuddering day.Now as then, though like the hounds of storm against her snarlingAll the clamorous years between us storm down many a fame,As our sires beheld before us we behold Grace DarlingCrowned and throned our queen, and as they hailed we hail her name.Nay, not ours alone, her kinsfolk born, though chiefliest ours,East and west and south acclaim her queen of England's maids,Star more sweet than all their stars and flower than all their flowers,Higher in heaven and earth than star that sets or flower that fades.How should land or sea that nurtured her forget, or loveHold not fast her fame for us while aught is borne in mind?Land and sea beneath us, sun and moon and stars above,Bear the bright soul witness, seen of all but souls born blind.Stars and moon and sun may wax and wane, subside and rise,Age on age as flake on flake of showering snows be shed:Not till earth be sunless, not till death strike blind the skies,May the deathless love that waits on deathless deeds be dead.
Years on years have withered since beside the hearth once thineI, too young to have seen thee, touched thy father's hallowed hand:Thee and him shall all men see for ever, stars that shineWhile the sea that spared thee girds and glorifies the land.