FOR A PORTRAIT OF FELICE ORSINI.

The shadows fallen of years are nineSince heaven grew seven times more divineWith thy soul entering, and the dearthOf souls on earthGrew sevenfold sadder, wanting OneWhose light of life, quenched here and done,Burns there eternal as the sun.

Beyond all word, beyond all deed,Beyond all thought beloved, what needHas death or love that speech should be,Hast thou of me?I had no word, no prayer, no cry,To praise or hail or mourn thee by,As when thou too wast man as I.

Nay, never, nor as any bornSave one whose name priests turn to scorn,Who haply, though we know not now,Was man as thou,A wanderer branded with men's blame,Loved past man's utterance: yea, the same,Perchance, and as his name thy name.

Thou wast as very Christ—not heDegraded into Deity,And priest-polluted by such prayerAs poisons air,Tongue-worship of the tongue that slays,False faith and parricidal praise:But the man crowned with suffering days.

God only, being of all mankindMost manlike, of most equal mindAnd heart most perfect, more than canBe heart of manOnce in ten ages, born to beAs haply Christ was, and as weKnew surely, seeing, and worshipped thee.

To know thee—this at least was ours,God, clothed upon with human hours,O face beloved, O spirit adored,Saviour and lord!That wast not only for thine ownRedeemer—not of these aloneBut all to whom thy word was known.

Ten years have wrought their will with meSince last my words took wing for theeWho then wast even as now aboveMe, and my love.As then thou knewest not scorn, so nowWith that beloved benignant browTake these of him whose light wast thou.

Steadfast as sorrow, fiery sad, and sweetWith underthoughts of love and faith, more strongThan doubt and hate and all ill thoughts which throng,Haply, round hope's or fear's world-wandering feetThat find no rest from wandering till they meetDeath, bearing palms in hand and crowns of song;His face, who thought to vanquish wrong with wrong,Erring, and make rage and redemption meet,Havoc and freedom; weaving in one weftGood with his right hand, evil with his left;But all a hero lived and erred and died;Looked thus upon the living world he leftSo bravely that with pity less than prideMen hail him Patriot and Tyrannicide.

Over two shadowless waters, adrift as a pinnace in peril,Hangs as in heavy suspense, charged with irresolute light,Softly the soul of the sunset upholden awhile on the sterileWaves and wastes of the land, half repossessed by the night.Inland glimmer the shallows asleep and afar in the breathlessTwilight: yonder the depths darken afar and asleep.Slowly the semblance of death out of heaven descends on the deathlessWaters: hardly the light lives on the face of the deep—Hardly, but here for awhile. All over the grey soft shallowHover the colours and clouds of the twilight, void of a star.As a bird unfledged is the broad-winged night, whose winglets are callowYet, but soon with their plumes will she cover her brood from afar,Cover the brood of her worlds that cumber the skies with their blossomThick as the darkness of leaf-shadowed spring is encumbered with flowers.World upon world is enwound in the bountiful girth of her bosom,Warm and lustrous with life lovely to look on as ours.Still is the sunset adrift as a spirit in doubt that dissemblesStill with itself, being sick of division and dimmed by dismay—Nay, not so; but with love and delight beyond passion it trembles,Fearful and fain of the night, lovely with love of the day:Fain and fearful of rest that is like unto death, and begottenOut of the womb of the tomb, born of the seed of the grave:Lovely with shadows of loves that are only not wholly forgotten,Only not wholly suppressed by the dark as a wreck by the wave.Still there linger the loves of the morning and noon, in a visionBlindly beheld, but in vain: ghosts that are tired, and would rest.But the glories beloved of the night rise all too dense for division,Deep in the depth of her breast sheltered as doves in a nest.Fainter the beams of the loves of the daylight season enkindledWane, and the memories of hours that were fair with the love of them fade:Loftier, aloft of the lights of the sunset stricken and dwindled,Gather the signs of the love at the heart of the night new-made.New-made night, new-born of the sunset, immeasurable, endless,Opens the secret of love hid from of old in her heart,In the deep sweet heart full-charged with faultless love of the friendlessSpirits of men that are eased when the wheels of the sun depart.Still is the sunset afloat as a ship on the waters upholdenFull-sailed, wide-winged, poised softly for ever asway—Nay, not so, but at least for a little, awhile at the goldenLimit of arching air fain for an hour to delay.Here on the bar of the sand-bank, steep yet aslope to the gleamingWaste of the water without, waste of the water within,Lights overhead and lights underneath seem doubtfully dreamingWhether the day be done, whether the night may begin.Far and afar and farther again they falter and hover,Warm on the water and deep in the sky and pale on the cloud:Colder again and slowly remoter, afraid to recoverBreath, yet fain to revive, as it seems, from the skirt of the shroud.Faintly the heartbeats shorten and pause of the light in the westwardHeaven, as eastward quicken the paces of star upon starHurried and eager of life as a child that strains to the breast-wardEagerly, yearning forth of the deeps where the ways of them are,Glad of the glory of the gift of their life and the wealth of its wonder,Fain of the night and the sea and the sweet wan face of the earth.Over them air grows deeper, intense with delight in them: underThings are thrilled in their sleep as with sense of a sure new birth.But here by the sand-bank watching, with eyes on the sea-line, strangerGrows to me also the weight of the sea-ridge gazed on of me,Heavily heaped up, changefully changeless, void though of dangerVoid not of menace, but full of the might of the dense dull sea.Like as the wave is before me, behind is the bank deep-drifted;Yellow and thick as the bank is behind me in front is the wave.As the wall of a prison imprisoning the mere is the girth of it lifted:But the rampire of water in front is erect as the wall of a grave.And the crests of it crumble and topple and change, but the wall is not broken:Standing still dry-shod, I see it as higher than my head,Moving inland alway again, reared up as in tokenStill of impending wrath still in the foam of it shed.And even in the pauses between them, dividing the rollers in sunder,High overhead seems ever the sea-line fixed as a mark,And the shore where I stand as a valley beholden of hills whence thunderCloud and torrent and storm, darkening the depths of the dark.Up to the sea, not upon it or over it, upward from underSeems he to gaze, whose eyes yearn after it here from the shore:A wall of turbid water, aslope to the wide sky's wonderOf colour and cloud, it climbs, or spreads as a slanted floor.And the large lights change on the face of the mere like things that were living,Winged and wonderful, beams like as birds are that pass and are free:But the light is dense as darkness, a gift withheld in the giving,That lies as dead on the fierce dull face of the landward sea.Stained and stifled and soiled, made earthier than earth is and duller,Grimly she puts back light as rejected, a thing put away:No transparent rapture, a molten music of colour;No translucent love taken and given of the day.Fettered and marred and begrimed is the light's live self on her falling,As the light of a man's life lighted the fume of a dungeon mars:Only she knows of the wind, when her wrath gives ear to him calling;The delight of the light she knows not, nor answers the sun or the stars.Love she hath none to return for the luminous love of their giving:None to reflect from the bitter and shallow response of her heartYearly she feeds on her dead, yet herself seems dead and not living,Or confused as a soul heavy-laden with trouble that will not depart.In the sound of her speech to the darkness the moan of her evil remorse is,Haply, for strong ships gnawed by the dog-toothed sea-bank's fangAnd trampled to death by the rage of the feet of her foam-lipped horsesWhose manes are yellow as plague, and as ensigns of pestilence hang,That wave in the foul faint air of the breath of a death-stricken city;So menacing heaves she the manes of her rollers knotted with sand,Discoloured, opaque, suspended in sign as of strength without pity,That shake with flameless thunder the low long length of the strand.Here, far off in the farther extreme of the shore as it lengthensNorthward, lonely for miles, ere ever a village begin,On the lapsing land that recedes as the growth of the strong sea strengthensShoreward, thrusting further and further its outworks in,Here in Shakespeare's vision, a flower of her kin forsaken,Lay in her golden raiment alone on the wild wave's edge,Surely by no shore else, but here on the bank storm-shaken,Perdita, bright as a dew-drop engilt of the sun on the sedge.Here on a shore unbeheld of his eyes in a dream he beheld herOutcast, fair as a fairy, the child of a far-off king:And over the babe-flower gently the head of a pastoral elderBowed, compassionate, hoar as the hawthorn-blossom in spring,And kind as harvest in autumn: a shelter of shade on the lonelyShelterless unknown shore scourged of implacable waves:Here, where the wind walks royal, alone in his kingdom, and onlySounds to the sedges a wail as of triumph that conquers and craves.All these waters and wastes are his empire of old, and awakenFrom barren and stagnant slumber at only the sound of his breath:Yet the hunger is eased not that aches in his heart, nor the goal overtakenThat his wide wings yearn for and labour as hearts that yearn after death.All the solitude sighs and expects with a blind expectationSomewhat unknown of its own sad heart, grown heart-sick of strife:Till sometime its wild heart maddens, and moans, and the vast ululationTakes wing with the clouds on the waters, and wails to be quit of its life.For the spirit and soul of the waste is the wind, and his wings with their wavingDarken and lighten the darkness and light of it thickened or thinned;But the heart that impels them is even as a conqueror's insatiably cravingThat victory can fill not, as power cannot satiate the want of the wind.All these moorlands and marshes are full of his might, and oppose notAught of defence nor of barrier, of forest or precipice piled:But the will of the wind works ever as his that desires what he knows not,And the wail of his want unfulfilled is as one making moan for her child.And the cry of his triumph is even as the crying of hunger that maddensThe heart of a strong man aching in vain as the wind's heart achesAnd the sadness itself of the land for its infinite solitude saddensMore for the sound than the silence athirst for the sound that slakes.And the sunset at last and the twilight are dead: and the darkness is breathlessWith fear of the wind's breath rising that seems and seems not to sleep:But a sense of the sound of it alway, a spirit unsleeping and deathless,Ghost or God, evermore moves on the face of the deep.

(On the Busts of Nero in the Uffizj.)

A child of brighter than the morning's birthAnd lovelier than all smiles that may be smiledSave only of little children undefiled,Sweet, perfect, witless of their own dear worth,Live rose of love, mute melody of mirth,Glad as a bird is when the woods are mild,Adorable as is nothing save a child,Hails with wide eyes and lips his life on earth,His lovely life with all its heaven to be.And whoso reads the name inscribed or hearsFeels his own heart a frozen well of tears,Child, for deep dread and fearful pity of theeWhom God would not let rather die than seeThe incumbent horror of impending years.

Man, that wast godlike being a child, and now,No less than kinglike, art no more in soothFor all thy grace and lordliness of youth,The crown that bids men's branded foreheads bowMuch more has branded and bowed down thy browAnd gnawn upon it as with fire or toothOf steel or snake so sorely, that the truthSeems here to bear false witness. Is it thou,Child? and is all the summer of all thy springThis? are the smiles that drew men's kisses downAll faded and transfigured to the frownThat grieves thy face? Art thou this weary thing?Then is no slave's load heavier than a crownAnd such a thrall no bondman as a king.

Misery, beyond all men's most miserable,Absolute, whole, defiant of defence,Inevitable, inexplacable, intense,More vast than heaven is high, more deep than hell,Past cure or charm of solace or of spell,Possesses and pervades the spirit and senseWhereto the expanse of the earth pays tribute; whenceBreeds evil only, and broods on fumes that swellRank from the blood of brother and mother and wife.'Misery of miseries, all is misery,' saithThe heavy fair-faced hateful head, at strifeWith its own lusts that burn with feverous breathLips which the loathsome bitterness of lifeLeaves fearful of the bitterness of death.

(Gratefully inscribed to Dr. A.B. Grosart.)

Sweet song-flower of the Mayspring of our song,Be welcome to us, with loving thanks and praiseTo his good hand who travelling on strange waysFound thee forlorn and fragrant, lain alongBeneath dead leaves that many a winter's wrongHad rained and heaped through nigh three centuries' mazeAbove thy Maybloom, hiding from our gazeThe life that in thy leaves lay sweet and strong.For thine have life, while many above thine headPiled by the wind lie blossomless and dead.So now disburdened of such load aboveThat lay as death's own dust upon thee shedBy days too deaf to hear thee like a doveMurmuring, we hear thee, bird and flower of love.

(On the refusal by the French Senate of the plenary amnesty demanded by Victor Hugo, in his speech of July 3rd, for the surviving exiles of the Commune.)

Thou shouldst have risen as never dawn yet rose,Day of the sunrise of the soul of France,Dawn of the whole world's morning, when the tranceOf all the world had end, and all its woesRespite, prophetic of their perfect close.Light of all tribes of men, all names and clans,Dawn of the whole world's morning and of man'sFlower of the heart of morning's mystic rose,Dawn of the very dawn of very day,When the sun brighter breaks night's ruinous prison,Thou shouldst have risen as yet no dawn has risen,Evoked of him whose word puts night away,Our father, at the music of whose wordExile had ended, and the world had heard.

July 5, 1880.

Malâ soluta navis exit alite.

Hor.

Rigged with curses dark.

Milton.

Gold, and fair marbles, and again more gold,And space of halls afloat that glance and gleamLike the green heights of sunset heaven, or seemThe golden steeps of sunrise red and coldOn deserts where dark exile keeps the foldFast of the flocks of torment, where no beamFalls of kind light or comfort save in dream,These we far off behold not, who beholdThe cordage woven of curses, and the decksWith mortal hate and mortal peril paven;From stem to stern the lines of doom engravenThat mark for sure inevitable wrecksThose sails predestinate, though no storm vex,To miss on earth and find in hell their haven.

All curses be about her, and all illGo with her; heaven be dark above her way,The gulf beneath her glad and sure of prey,And, wheresoe'er her prow be pointed, stillThe winds of heaven have all one evil willConspirant even as hearts of kings to slayWith mouths of kings to lie and smile and pray,And chiefliest his whose wintrier breath makes chillWith more than winter's and more poisonous coldThe horror of his kingdom toward the north,The deserts of his kingdom toward the east.And though death hide not in her direful holdBe all stars adverse toward her that come forthNightly, by day all hours till all have ceased:

Till all have ceased for ever, and the sumBe summed of all the sumless curses toldOut on his head by all dark seasons rolledOver its cursed and crowned existence, dumbAnd blind and stark as though the snows made numbAll sense within it, and all conscience cold,That hangs round hearts of less imperial mouldLike a snake feeding till their doomsday come.O heart fast bound of frozen poison, beAll nature's as all true men's hearts to thee,A two-edged sword of judgment; hope be farAnd fear at hand for pilot overseaWith death for compass and despair for star,And the white foam a shroud for the White Czar.

September 30, 1880.

Between the springs of six and seven,Two fresh years' fountains, clearOf all but golden sand for leaven,Child, midway passing here,As earth for love's sake dares bless heaven,So dare I bless you, dear.Between two bright well-heads, that brightenWith every breath that blowsToo loud to lull, too low to frighten,But fain to rock, the rose,Your feet stand fast, your lit smiles lighten,That might rear flowers from snows.You came when winds unleashed were snarlingBehind the frost-bound hours,A snow-bird sturdier than the starling,A storm-bird fledged for showers,That spring might smile to find you, darling,First born of all the flowers.Could love make worthy things of worthless,My song were worth an ear:Its note should make the days most mirthlessThe merriest of the year,And wake to birth all buds yet birthlessTo keep your birthday, dear.But where your birthday brightens heavenNo need has earth, God knows,Of light or warmth to melt or leavenThe frost or fog that glowsWith sevenfold heavenly lights of sevenSweet springs that cleave the snows.Could love make worthy music of you,And match my Master's powers,Had even my love less heart to love you,A better song were ours;With all the rhymes like stars above you,And all the words like flowers.

Between two bright well-heads, that brightenWith every breath that blowsToo loud to lull, too low to frighten,But fain to rock, the rose,Your feet stand fast, your lit smiles lighten,That might rear flowers from snows.

You came when winds unleashed were snarlingBehind the frost-bound hours,A snow-bird sturdier than the starling,A storm-bird fledged for showers,That spring might smile to find you, darling,First born of all the flowers.

Could love make worthy things of worthless,My song were worth an ear:Its note should make the days most mirthlessThe merriest of the year,And wake to birth all buds yet birthlessTo keep your birthday, dear.

But where your birthday brightens heavenNo need has earth, God knows,Of light or warmth to melt or leavenThe frost or fog that glowsWith sevenfold heavenly lights of sevenSweet springs that cleave the snows.

Could love make worthy music of you,And match my Master's powers,Had even my love less heart to love you,A better song were ours;With all the rhymes like stars above you,And all the words like flowers.

September 30, 1880.

(To a friend leaving England for a year's residence in Australia.)

These winds and suns of springThat warm with breath and wingThe trembling sleep of earth, till half awakeShe laughs and blushes ere her slumber break,For all good gifts they bringRequire one better thing,For all the loans of joy they lend us, borrowOne sharper dole of sorrow,To sunder soon by half a world of seaHer son from England and my friend from me.Nor hope nor love nor fearMay speed or stay one year,Nor song nor prayer may bid, as mine would fain,The seasons perish and be born again,Restoring all we lend,Reluctant, of a friend,The voice, the hand, the presence and the sightThat lend their life and lightTo present gladness and heart-strengthening cheer,Now lent again for one reluctant year.So much we lend indeed,Perforce, by force of need,So much we must; even these things and no moreThe far sea sundering and the sundered shoreA world apart from ours,So much the imperious hours,Exact, and spare not; but no more than theseAll earth and all her seasFrom thought and faith of trust and truth can borrow,Not memory from desire, nor hope from sorrow.Through bright and dark and brightReturns of day and nightI bid the swift year speed and change and giveHis breath of life to make the next year liveWith sunnier suns for usA life more prosperous,And laugh with flowers more fragrant, that shall seeA merrier March for me,A rosier-girdled race of night with day,A goodlier April and a tenderer May.For him the inverted yearShall mark our seasons hereWith alien alternation, and reviveThis withered winter, slaying the spring aliveWith darts more sharply drawnAs nearer draws the dawnIn heaven transfigured over earth transformedAnd with our winters warmedAnd wasted with our summers, till the beamsRise on his face that rose on Dante's dreams.Till fourfold morning riseOf starshine on his eyes,Dawn of the spheres that brand steep heaven acrossAt height of night with semblance of a crossWhose grace and ghostly gloryPoured heaven on purgatorySeeing with their flamelets risen all heaven grow gladFor love thereof it hadAnd lovely joy of loving; so may theseMake bright with welcome now their southern seas.O happy stars, whose mirthThe saddest soul on earthThat ever soared and sang found strong to bless,Lightening his life's harsh load of heavinessWith comfort sown like seedIn dream though not in deedOn sprinkled wastes of darkling thought divine,Let all your lights now shineWith all as glorious gladness on his eyesFor whom indeed and not in dream they rise.As those great twins of airHailed once with oldworld prayerOf all folk alway faring forth by sea,So now may these for grace and guidance be,To guard his sail and bringAgain to brighten springThe face we look for and the hand we lackStill, till they light him back,As welcome as to first discovering eyesTheir light rose ever, soon on his to rise.As parting now he goesFrom snow-time back to snows,So back to spring from summer may next yearRestore him, and our hearts receive him here,The best good gift that springHad ever grace to bringAt fortune's happiest hour of star-blest birthBack to love's homebright earth,To eyes with eyes that commune, hand with hand,And the old warm bosom of all our mother-land.Earth and sea-wind and seaAnd stars and sunlight beAlike all prosperous for him, and all hoursHave all one heart, and all that heart as ours.All things as good as strangeCrown all the seasons' changeWith changing flower and compensating fruitFrom one year's ripening root;Till next year bring us, roused at spring's recall,A heartier flower and goodlier fruit than all.

Nor hope nor love nor fearMay speed or stay one year,Nor song nor prayer may bid, as mine would fain,The seasons perish and be born again,Restoring all we lend,Reluctant, of a friend,The voice, the hand, the presence and the sightThat lend their life and lightTo present gladness and heart-strengthening cheer,Now lent again for one reluctant year.

So much we lend indeed,Perforce, by force of need,So much we must; even these things and no moreThe far sea sundering and the sundered shoreA world apart from ours,So much the imperious hours,Exact, and spare not; but no more than theseAll earth and all her seasFrom thought and faith of trust and truth can borrow,Not memory from desire, nor hope from sorrow.

Through bright and dark and brightReturns of day and nightI bid the swift year speed and change and giveHis breath of life to make the next year liveWith sunnier suns for usA life more prosperous,And laugh with flowers more fragrant, that shall seeA merrier March for me,A rosier-girdled race of night with day,A goodlier April and a tenderer May.

For him the inverted yearShall mark our seasons hereWith alien alternation, and reviveThis withered winter, slaying the spring aliveWith darts more sharply drawnAs nearer draws the dawnIn heaven transfigured over earth transformedAnd with our winters warmedAnd wasted with our summers, till the beamsRise on his face that rose on Dante's dreams.

Till fourfold morning riseOf starshine on his eyes,Dawn of the spheres that brand steep heaven acrossAt height of night with semblance of a crossWhose grace and ghostly gloryPoured heaven on purgatorySeeing with their flamelets risen all heaven grow gladFor love thereof it hadAnd lovely joy of loving; so may theseMake bright with welcome now their southern seas.

O happy stars, whose mirthThe saddest soul on earthThat ever soared and sang found strong to bless,Lightening his life's harsh load of heavinessWith comfort sown like seedIn dream though not in deedOn sprinkled wastes of darkling thought divine,Let all your lights now shineWith all as glorious gladness on his eyesFor whom indeed and not in dream they rise.

As those great twins of airHailed once with oldworld prayerOf all folk alway faring forth by sea,So now may these for grace and guidance be,To guard his sail and bringAgain to brighten springThe face we look for and the hand we lackStill, till they light him back,As welcome as to first discovering eyesTheir light rose ever, soon on his to rise.

As parting now he goesFrom snow-time back to snows,So back to spring from summer may next yearRestore him, and our hearts receive him here,The best good gift that springHad ever grace to bringAt fortune's happiest hour of star-blest birthBack to love's homebright earth,To eyes with eyes that commune, hand with hand,And the old warm bosom of all our mother-land.

Earth and sea-wind and seaAnd stars and sunlight beAlike all prosperous for him, and all hoursHave all one heart, and all that heart as ours.All things as good as strangeCrown all the seasons' changeWith changing flower and compensating fruitFrom one year's ripening root;Till next year bring us, roused at spring's recall,A heartier flower and goodlier fruit than all.

March 26, 1880.

'We are what suns and winds and waters make us.'—Landor.

Sea, wind, and sun, with light and sound and breathThe spirit of man fulfilling—these createThat joy wherewith man's life grown passionateGains heart to hear and sense to read and faithTo know the secret word our Mother saithIn silence, and to see, though doubt wax great,Death as the shadow cast by life on fate,Passing, whose shade we call the shadow of death.Brother, to whom our Mother as to meIs dearer than all dreams of days undone,This song I give you of the sovereign threeThat are as life and sleep and death are, one:A song the sea-wind gave me from the sea,Where nought of man's endures before the sun.

Brother, to whom our Mother as to meIs dearer than all dreams of days undone,This song I give you of the sovereign threeThat are as life and sleep and death are, one:A song the sea-wind gave me from the sea,Where nought of man's endures before the sun.

A land that is lonelier than ruin;A sea that is stranger than death:Far fields that a rose never blew in,Wan waste where the winds lack breath;Waste endless and boundless and flowerlessBut of marsh-blossoms fruitless as free:Where earth lies exhausted, as powerlessTo strive with the sea.

Far flickers the flight of the swallows,Far flutters the weft of the grassSpun dense over desolate hollowsMore pale than the clouds as they pass:Thick woven as the weft of a witch isRound the heart of a thrall that hath sinned,Whose youth and the wrecks of its richesAre waifs on the wind.

The pastures are herdless and sheepless,No pasture or shelter for herds:The wind is relentless and sleepless,And restless and songless the birds;Their cries from afar fall breathless,Their wings are as lightnings that flee;For the land has two lords that are deathless:Death's self, and the sea.

These twain, as a king with his fellow,Hold converse of desolate speech:And her waters are haggard and yellowAnd crass with the scurf of the beach:And his garments are grey as the hoaryWan sky where the day lies dim;And his power is to her, and his glory,As hers unto him.

In the pride of his power she rejoices,In her glory he glows and is glad:In her darkness the sound of his voice is,With his breath she dilates and is mad:'If thou slay me, O death, and outlive me,Yet thy love hath fulfilled me of thee.''Shall I give thee not back if thou give me,O sister, O sea?'

And year upon year dawns living,And age upon age drops dead:And his hand is not weary of giving,And the thirst of her heart is not fed:And the hunger that moans in her passion,And the rage in her hunger that roars,As a wolf's that the winter lays lash on,Still calls and implores.

Her walls have no granite for girder,No fortalice fronting her stands:But reefs the bloodguiltiest of murderAre less than the banks of her sands:These number their slain by the thousand;For the ship hath no surety to be,When the bank is abreast of her bows andAflush with the sea.

No surety to stand, and no shelterTo dawn out of darkness but one,Out of waters that hurtle and welterNo succour to dawn with the sunBut a rest from the wind as it passes,Where, hardly redeemed from the waves,Lie thick as the blades of the grassesThe dead in their graves.

A multitude noteless of numbers,As wild weeds cast on an heap:And sounder than sleep are their slumbers,And softer than song is their sleep;And sweeter than all things and strangerThe sense, if perchance it may be,That the wind is divested of dangerAnd scatheless the sea.

That the roar of the banks they breastedIs hurtless as bellowing of herds,And the strength of his wings that investedThe wind, as the strength of a bird's;As the sea-mew's might or the swallow'sThat cry to him back if he cries,As over the graves and their hollowsDays darken and rise.

As the souls of the dead men disburdenedAnd clean of the sins that they sinned,With a lovelier than man's life guerdonedAnd delight as a wave's in the wind,And delight as the wind's in the billow,Birds pass, and deride with their gleeThe flesh that has dust for its pillowAs wrecks have the sea.

When the ways of the sun wax dimmer,Wings flash through the dusk like beams;As the clouds in the lit sky glimmer,The bird in the graveyard gleams;As the cloud at its wing's edge whitensWhen the clarions of sunrise are heard,The graves that the bird's note brightensGrow bright for the bird.

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