Newfoundland Verse

To my MOTHER
by E.J. Pratt
The Ryerson Press Publishers Toronto
COPYRIGHT, CANADA, 1923 BY THE RYERSON PRESS
CONTENTS

MORNING
Old, old is the sea to-day. A sudden stealth of age Has torn away The texture of its youth and grace, And filched the rose of daybreak from its waters. Now lines of grey And dragging vapors on its brow Heavily are drawn; And it lies broken as with centuries, Though yesterday, Blue-eyed and shadowless as a child's face, It held the promise of a luminous dawn; Though through its merry after-hours It bade the sun to pour Its flaming mintage on the ocean floor That by a conjuror's touch was turned To rarer treasure manifold, Where jacinth, emerald and sapphire burned— A fringe around a core of gold.... Old, old is the sea to-day, Forsaken, chill and grey, And banished is the glory of its waters; Though through the silent tenure of the night It bade the sterile moon to multiply A thousand-fold its undivided light, Within the nadir of a richer sky; When every star a thousand cressets glowed That, caught in wider conflagration, sent Vast leagues of silver fire wherever flowed The waters of its shoreless firmament. But old and grey Is the sea to-day, With the morning colors blanched upon its waters.
MASKS
What hidden soul residing Within these forms, O sea! Should, every hour changing, To Time yet changeless be? What masks hast thou not worn, What parts not played, Thou Prince of all the Revels In Life's Masquerade? Light-hearted as a jester, The motley fits thy mood, As the gold and the purple, Thy statelier habitude. At dawn— A trumpeter preluding a day's pageant. At noon— A dancer weaving new measures around the furrows of ships with white sails. Later— A courier with sealed tidings hastening towards the shore. At sunset— A dyer steeping colors on a bay. Again— A sculptor teasing faces out of the moonlit foam on a reef. Or carving bric-a-brac upon a beach, Or fashioning, with age-toiled hands, a grotto out of limestone. The wind blows— And a master puts a flute to his lips. It blows again— And his fingers take hold of organ stops ....