Mare

“ Sometimes they ford where the water is breast-high over the bar. It is wild and delicious to hear the mares whinnying to their foals in midstream, and the echo of their voices, with the rushing of the loud water pent among the hills. ”

“ She praises God in her beauty and grace,
Whispers delight. And there flows
A delicate wind from the Southern seas,
Kissing her leaves. She sighs.
While the birds in her tresses make merry;
Burns the Sun in the skies. ”

“ Come with thy girthed mares, with abundant vigour and plenteous strength to him who sings thy praises. Come hither, borne by mares with many heroes, Lover of song! Steer! for the people's welfare. 5. Indra with rush and might, sped by his Coursers, hath swiftly won the waters from the southward. Thus set at liberty the rivers daily flow to their goal, incessant and exhaustless. ”

“ And found but shadow laid
Before my tired feet.
Comes no more dawn to me,
Nor bird of open skies.
Only his woods' deep gloom I see
Till, at the end of all, shall rise,
Afar and tranquilly,
Death's stretching sea. ”

“ His eyes were sad as fishes that swim up
And stare upon an element not theirs
Through a thin skin of shrewish water, then
Turn on a languid fin, and dip down, down,
Into unplumbed, vast, oozy deeps of dream. ”

“ Full-blown and fading,
Their last faint fragrance gone.
And on high in its lantern
A shape of the living
Watched o'er a shoreless sea,
From a Tower rotting
With age and weakness,
Once lovely as ivory. ”

“ It seems that every wind that breathes
Blows from the fields of sleep?
Day breaks in heedless beauty,
Kindling each drop of dew,
But unforsaking shadow dwells
Beneath this lonely yew.
[Pg 46] And, all else lost and faded,
Only this listening head
Keeps with a strange unanswering smile
Its secret with the dead.
[Pg 47]
NEVER MORE, SAILOR
Never more, Sailor,
Shalt thou be
Tossed on the wind-ridden,
Restless sea.
Its tides may labour;
All the world
Shake 'neath that weight
Of waters hurled:
But its whole shock
Can only stir
Thy dust to a quiet
Even quieter. ”

“ This darkened phantasm walks
Where nightmares are:
In a frenzy of life and light,
Crisscross—a menacing throng—
They gibe, they squeal at the stranger,
Jostling along,
Their faces cadaverous grey. ”

“ Fuller says in the character of the good sea-captain in the 'Holy State'—'Who first taught the water to imitate the creatures on land, so that the sea is the stable of horse-fishes, the stye of hog-fishes, the kennel of dog-fishes, and in all things, the sea is the ape of the land?' Essper George, in 'Vivian Grey,' says to the sea: 'O thou indifferent ape of earth, what art thou, O bully ocean, but the stable of horse-fishes, the stall of cow-fishes, the stye of hog-fishes, and the kennel of dog-fishes?' Other cases may be more doubtful. ”

“ The leaping waves with their white-capped crest
The plunge and lunge on the ocean's breast
Like wild, white horses racing free,
With the swing of the rolling, surging sea!
The white sea cloud that drifts like a dream;
The sea-gulls that skim o'er the waves, and scream;
The dolphin's plunge and the petrel's nest,
That is borne to land on the tide-race crest:
And all that goes, from mid-ocean to lea,
To make up the rolling, the surging sea! ”

“ The westering sunshine in a pool
Floats in her parlour still and cool;
While the slim bird its lean wires shakes,
As into piercing song it breaks;
Till Peter's pale-green eyes ajar
Dream, wake; wake, dream, in one brief bar. ”

“ The sun-breeze smiled, the night-wind laughed ;
The white-flocked sky, the foam-decked sea
Beckoned and welcomed sail and craft,
Beckoned and welcomed friend and me.
So side by side we sailed and sailed,
Fair wind behind, fair port before,
Till port forgot and wind that failed
Left both adrift twixt shore and shore.
A sea that steamed, a sky that scowled,
A sullen silence calm as death,
Then o'er the changing ocean howled
Full in our face the wild wind's breath. ”

“ Frown above the waterfalls
⁠Silver and cold;
⁠Timelessly old:
⁠Not that way.
Not toward Death, who, stranger, fairer,
Than any siren turns his head—
Than sea-couched siren, arched with rain-bows,
Where knell the waves of her ocean bed. ”

“ A SEA SONG Dolphins under and sea-gulls over The surge and shift of the dipping tide, And you, my rover, my blithe sea-rover, Sailing the path of the undenied. In dreams I follow you, O my rover, Wide, for the ways of the sea are wide; Come back, come back when the voyage is over,— Back to the heart of the long denied!
A SYMPHONY OF THE SEA (GLOZE ROYAL) The surges sing in ceaseless monotone The songs and sagas of the long-ago; Many and mournful are the memories blown Across the tireless tides that ebb and flow. ”

“ These whereby we stand no shore beyond us limits: these are free.
Gazing hence, we see the water that grows iron round the Pole,
From the shore that hath no shore beyond it set in all the sea.
Sail on sail along the sea-line fades and flashes; here on land
Flash and fade the wheeling wings on wings of mews that plunge and scream.
Hour on hour along the line of life and time's evasive strand
Shines and darkens, wanes and waxes, slays and dies: and scarce they seem
More than motes that thronged and trembled in the brief noon's breath and beam. ”

“ The sea outstretches grey and grim.
Away, away, away!
Once more at sea,
The old, old sea I used to sail,
The battling tide, the blowing gale,
The waves with ceaseless under-wail
The life that used to be. ”

“ The little fleet will soon appear yonder betwixt the ocean and God’s sky with its white or brown sails. To-day the sky is unclouded, the sea calm; the flood tide floats the fishers gently to the shore. But the Ocean is a capricious old fellow, who takes all shapes and sings in many voices. ”

“ Leading the swinging boat's crew to the beach;
And all the world slides up—
And then the stars slide down—
As ocean breathes; while evening falls,
And destiny is being rowed ashore.
The twilight-muffled bells of town, the bark of dogs,
The distant shouts, and smell of burning wood,
Fall graciously upon their sea-tired sense.
Wide-trousered, barefoot sailors carry them to land,
Tho' snake-voiced waves flaunt frothing up the beach ”

“ The aching wastes of the unknown Are half reclaimed from gloom, Since on life's hospitable sea All souls find sailing-room. The ocean grows a weariness With nothing else in sight; Its east and west, its north and south, Spread out from morn to night; We miss the warm, caressing shore, Its brooding shade and light. A part is greater than the whole; By hints are mysteries told. The fringes of eternity,— God's sweeping garment-fold, In that bright shred of glittering sea, I reach out for, and hold. The sails, like flakes of roseate pearl, Float in upon the mist ”

“ THE MERMAIDS
SAND, sand; hills of sand;
And the wind where nothing is
Green and sweet of the land;
No grass, no trees,
No bird, no butterfly,
But hills, hills of sand,
And a burning sky. ”

“ There’s a sea-way somewhere where all day long
Is the hushed susurrus of the sea,
The mewing of the skuas, and the sailor’s song,
And the wind’s cry calling me.
There’s a haven somewhere where the quiet of the bay
Is troubled with the shifting tide,
Where the gulls are flying, crying in the bright white spray,
And the tan-sailed schooners ride. ”

“ Oh, to be out on the Ocean! where the waves beat wild and free,
Where there's naught 'twixt the sky and billows but the boat, and you, and me!
Where the winds with their touch caress us, and the sea-gulls sweep on high,
And the bell, from its rocky outpost, sends forth its warning cry!
Oh, to be out on the Ocean! ”

“ But still the Headland seems a weary way;
My boatmen, too, are old, and oft an oar
Slips from a feeble hand, but yet the shore
Upon whose forehead beams the evening star,
Is nearer still and nearer every day.
What matters that my boatmen now are old,
Why should I grieve that with a feeble hand
I hold the swaying helm? The waves no more
Rise o'er the prow to keep me from the shore,
The silken sail at last the breezes hold,
The tide of Love sets toward the Heavenly Land. ”

“ Born of the sea, where is love more beautiful than on the sea? Like water, light, warm, swaying, the indispensable ingredient, the transformations, the necessities, the luxury, with the whites of the waves whiter than salt, with gulls flashing in the sun, with the bow of the boat swing­ing.
We swam, dove, played, laughed. There was bread soaked in honey and nuts dipped in wine and fruit, whose peelings we tossed to the birds. There was the creaking of the sail for our silences, the long brown tiller arm reaching to the sun, his hands on my shoulders. ”

“ A ram, a bull and a lion besport themselves upon the shore, enormous birds sit on the bushes, and the sea is already full of every kind of fish; slender pink clouds are in the sky, and the distant hills on the horizon have faded into shades of blue-green, like the landscape of an Umbrian picture. ”

“ In northern seas I weep alone, alone,
In winter seas.
Death’s hounds are on the waves, with many moans
Death’s voice comes with the breeze;
My helpless boat, rocked in the wind, obeys no steadfast hand. ”

“ How strange it must seem, to be neither a fish nor a bird, and yet to live as it were between sea and sky; each morning finding yourself farther away from land, each night lying down to be "rocked in the cradle of the deep," and to hear the wash of the waves as the boat cuts her way through them, and the sighing of the wind, not through the trees on the lawn, but among the sails and ropes of your floating home! ”

“ A little boat now comes to view, And, in the path of splendor, It seems to drift with idle oar, To distant moon and unknown shore,— Till human vision, at its best, Can scarce discern, on ocean’s crest, That tiny speck that rocks the two To love dreams new and tender. ”

“ The voyagers of the World with sail and heavy oar,
Have sought thy shrine.
Beauty inexorable hath lured them on:
Remote unnamed stars enclustering gleam—
Burn in thy flowered locks, though creeping daybreak wan
Prove thee but dream.
Noonday to night the enigma of thine eyes
Frets with desire their travel-wearied brain,
Till in the vast of dark the ice-cold moon arise
And pour them peace again;
And with malign mirage uprears an isle
Of fountain and palm, and courts of jasmine and rose,
Whence far decoy of siren throats their souls beguile,
And maddening fragrance flows. ”

“ His glamour withered and gone,
In the souls of his brooding mariners,
While the song pined on.
Time, like a falling dew,
Life, like the scene of a dream,
Laid between slumber and slumber,
Only did seem. . . . ”

“ Observe, too, that whoever has been born and bred by the shore will evermore look out on the sea and be glad. A sail is better than a horse, and the breaking of the waves hath more majesty and a diviner music than any organ touched by human hands. ”

“ All day long I walk the shore
Gazing out across the sea
Where the merry white-capped waves
Chase each other in their glee.
And I watch with eager eyes,
Pacing slowly to and fro,
For the ships I sent to sea
Many weary years ago. ”

“ I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown. ”

“ In each sail that skims the horizon, In each landward-blowing breeze, I behold that stately galley, Hear those mournful melodies; Till my soul is full of longing For the secret of the sea, And the heart of the great ocean Sends a thrilling pulse through me. TWILIGHT The twilight is sad and cloudy, The wind blows wild and free, And like the wings of sea-birds Flash the white caps of the sea. ”

“ All the wonders of the great deep were about them—strange fish, sea porpoise, and whales, by day, and ever-new phosphorescent gleams and starry heavens by night. Then the wonderful interest of a sail at sea, or a distant steamship; some other humanity than that on their own ship passing them on the limitless ocean! ”

“ Of the thunder of the foam;
[Pg 115]
For the grass is full of slumber
In the twilight world for me,
And my tired hands are slackened
From their toiling on the sea.
[Pg 116]
OUTBOUND
A lonely sail in the vast sea-room,
I have put out for the port of gloom.
The voyage is far on the trackless tide,
The watch is long, and the seas are wide.
The headlands blue in the sinking day
Kiss me a hand on the outward way.
The fading gulls, as they dip and veer,
Lift me a voice that is good to hear.
The great winds come, and the heaving sea,
The restless mother, is calling me. ”

“ Storm and wreck and calm; intercourse with savages who look with wonder on the white sails that have come up from the under-world; the wash of waters upon coral-reefs; the shadow of green palms upon lonely isles; strange sea-weeds floating on the deep green wave, and flying-fish hunted by voracious foes; long days and nights spent under glowing skies, without a glimpse of land; the breathless [Pg 341] eagerness with which some new shore is sighted—with such incidents as these we English are necessarily familiar, possessing as we do a vast and various literature of the sea. ”

“ About us beats the sea—the sail-flecked, restless sea, humming its tune about our flying keel, unmindful of the voices of men. The land sinks to meadows, black pine forests, with here and there a blue and wistful mountain. ”

“ The horse was dragged up on to its haunches, the cab came to a standstill, and, to the roaring suspirations of the animal, the Fruit Merchant alighted on the tinkling ice of a frozen wayside puddle of water. ”