SEA-HORIZONS
The sorrowful expanse from heaven to heaven,
From zone to zone, from deep to height above,
The mute arch of the everlasting heaven
Bends over me with Your unwearied love.
Immeasurable, unutterable, and soundless—
Wide as the east from the west Your love is wide;
The unfathomable distances are boundless
Infinite tenderness on every side.
Against the dark strength of Your huge endurance
My little being beats her baffled wings,
Lifts her shrill voice, and wounds the calm assurance
And tenderness of Your large evenings.
In the vast robes of Your serene compassion
She hides her soiled and burning face of shame—
Your solemn and inexorable passion
Lifts her blurred eyes to meet Your glance of flame.
As bread that for my daily fare is broken,
The eternal loveliness before me spread—
Unutterable gesture—word unspoken,
In the proud silences forever said!
The sun puts forth his strength, the reaches shimmer
With inarticulate rapture, and the proud
Waters are thrilled; the fields of ocean glimmer
With shifting light and overshadowing cloud.
Noon upon noon in heaven takes up his station,
Day follows night, and night succeeds to day:
Your infinite and lonely meditation
Sinks with the sunset down the starry way.
Veiled is the Vast: the heaven of evening burning.
Reveals on the large waters of the sea
Hopelessness—hopelessness—the patient yearning
And dumb caress of the Immensity.
What message have You left for me, what token
Of Your lone love, whose laboring Will has wrought
The firmament over my head, and spoken
Unto my nothingness Your starry Thought!
Sorrowful is the mighty Heart that reaches
Around this brief and scornful heart of mine—
The dim curve of the melancholy beaches,
And vacancies along the lone sea-line.
In the huge longing of the far sea-spaces,
The tremulous rim about the waters curled,
Waits the eternal Gentleness, and traces
His sad horizons ’round the fading world.
Cloud beyond cloud, the arch of heaven goes over—
Steep beyond steep, the patient skies descend:
The illimitable wastes and waves discover
Loneliness—loneliness—without an end.
Inexorable Compassion, may I never
Reach the last verge and limits of Your love!
Beyond me, still beyond me melt forever
The eternal margins, fading as I move.