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(Excerpt)
FRIEND of the thoughtful mind and gentle heart, | |
| Beneath the citron-tree— | |
| Deep calling to my soul’s profounder deep,— | |
| I hear the Mexique Sea. | |
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| White, through the night, the spectral surf rides in, | 5 |
| Along the spectral sands, | |
| And all the air vibrates, as if from harps | |
| Touched by phantasmal hands. | |
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| Bright in the moon the red pomegranate-flowers | |
| Lean to the yucca’s bells, | 10 |
| While with her chrism of dew sad Midnight fills | |
| The milk-white asphodels. | |
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| Watching all night—as I have done before— | |
| I count the stars that set, | |
| Each writing on my soul some memory deep | 15 |
| Of pleasure or regret; | |
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| Till, wild with heart-break, toward the east I turn, | |
| Waiting for dawn of day; | |
| And chanting sea, and asphodel, and star | |
| Are faded, all, away. | 20 |
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| Only within my trembling, trembling hands— | |
| Brought unto me by thee— | |
| I clasp these beautiful and fragile things, | |
| Bright sea-weeds from the sea. | |
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| Fair bloom the flowers beneath these northern skies, | 25 |
| Pure shine the stars by night, | |
| And grandly sing the grand Atlantic waves | |
| In thunder-throated might: | |
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| Yet, as the sea-shell in her chambers keeps | |
| The murmur of the sea, | 30 |
| So the deep echoing memories of my home | |
| Will not depart from me. | |
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| Prone on the page they lie, these gentle things, | |
| As I have seen them cast | |
| Like a drowned woman’s hair along the sands | 35 |
| When storms were overpast; | |
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| Prone, like mine own affections, cast ashore | |
| In battle’s storm and blight. | |
| Would they could die, like sea-weed! Bear with me, | |
| But I must weep to-night. * * * * * | 40 |
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