FLOOD-TIDE
(Maine Coast—1917)
Life went whistling a tune between the plum and the cherry,
Rolling a blossom of pink like almonds under his tongue,
Looked at us all as we grew, and made exceedingly merry.
“Lord! how I’ll dibble and prune, when you aren’t so beautifully young!
There was moon like a spilling of milky sap from the sky
And the tree of the sky was a candle of creamy flame,
Each white-fire-leaf of a star distinct; and old wind went by
Hooded in dark and ashamed as it whispered some muttering name.
We were huddled up in the launch like a sleepy parcel of birds.
The plunging silence engulfed us. We heard, as if we had died,
The throb of the engine’s heart erase our tiptoeing words,
And the slow mysterious mouth of the water against the side.
If you dripped your fingers awave, wet star-dust clung to the skin,
Spangling the wax-cool hand with the pollen and seeds of dawn,
And the wake, like a fish of fire, went twisting alive within
The willow-dark cage of green, and in splinters of foam was gone.
Then we saw the cloudy old house, and the waters deep at its stair,
Bright in an endless flood, irradiate, calm and wise,
Like the milk-white body of Truth asleep in her naked hair,
And the blood and strength of the Earth arose to our dazzling eyes!
Quiet, quiet and quiet, said the march of the wave beneath.
Oh, immaculate shone the mind while the lotos of silence grew!
And the sore heart heavy with youth was a clean blade straight in its sheath,
As we drank with a matchless dream in that chrism of salt and dew!
Death jams down on his spade in the bloom of our elvish orchard,
Even the root-curls crawl at the skeleton jokes he cracks;
Let’s make rhymes for a while, as our Youth goes out to be tortured!
We shall remember a moon till they hew us under the axe!