THE CHILDREN OF THE FOAM.
Out forever and forever, Where our tresses glint and shiver On the icy, moonlit air; Come we from a land of gloaming, Children lost, forever homing, Never, never reaching there; Ride we, ride we, ever faster, Driven by our demon master, The wild wind in his despair. Ride we, ride we, ever home, Wan, white children of the foam.
In the wild October dawning, When the heaven’s angry awning Leans to lakeward, bleak and drear; And along the black, wet ledges, Under icy, caverned edges, Breaks the lake in maddened fear; And the woods in shore are moaning; Then you hear our weird intoning, Mad, late children of the year; Ride we, ride we, ever home, Lost, white children of the foam.
All grey day, the black sky under, Where the beaches moan and thunder, Where the breakers spume and comb; You may hear our riding, riding, You may hear our voices chiding, Under glimmer, under gloam;
Like a far-off infant wailing, You may hear our hailing, hailing, For the voices of our home; Ride we, ride we, ever home, Haunted children of the foam.
And at midnight, when the glimmer Of the moon grows dank and dimmer, Then we lift our gleaming eyes; Then you see our white arms tossing, Our wan breasts the moon embossing, Under gloom of lake and skies; You may hear our mournful chanting, And our voices haunting, haunting, Through the night’s mad melodies: Riding, riding, ever home, Wild, white children of the foam.
There forever and forever, Will no demon-hate dissever Peace and sleep and rest and dream; There is neither fear nor fret there When the tired children get there, Only dews and pallid beam Fall in gentle peace and sadness Over long surcease of madness, From hushed skies that gleam and gleam: In the longed-for, sought-for home Of the children of the foam.
There the streets are hushed and restful, And of dreams is every breast full, With the sleep that tired eyes wear; There the city hath long quiet From the madness and the riot, From the failing hearts of care;
Balm of peacefulness ingliding, Dream we through our riding, riding, As we homeward, homeward fare; Riding, riding, ever home, Wild, white children of the foam.
Under pallid moonlight beaming, Under stars of midnight gleaming, And the ebon arch of night; Round the rosy edge of morning, You may hear our distant horning, You may mark our phantom flight; Riding, riding, ever faster, Driven by our demon master, Under darkness, under light; Ride we, ride we, ever home, Wild, white children of the foam.
HOW ONE WINTER CAME
IN THE LAKE REGION.
For weeks and weeks the autumn world stood still, Clothed in the shadow of a smoky haze; The fields were dead, the wind had lost its will, And all the lands were hushed by wood and hill, In those grey, withered days.
Behind a mist the blear sun rose and set, At night the moon would nestle in a cloud; The fisherman, a ghost, did cast his net; The lake its shores forgot to chafe and fret, And hushed its caverns loud.
Far in the smoky woods the birds were mute, Save that from blackened tree a jay would scream, Or far in swamps the lizard’s lonesome lute Would pipe in thirst, or by some gnarlèd root The tree-toad trilled his dream.
From day to day still hushed the season’s mood, The streams stayed in their runnels shrunk and dry; Suns rose aghast by wave and shore and wood, And all the world, with ominous silence, stood In weird expectancy:
When one strange night the sun like blood went down, Flooding the heavens in a ruddy hue; Red grew the lake, the sere fields parched and brown, Red grew the marshes where the creeks stole down, But never a wind-breath blew.
That night I felt the winter in my veins, A joyous tremor of the icy glow; And woke to hear the north’s wild vibrant strains, While far and wide, by withered woods and plains, Fast fell the driving snow.
MIDWINTER STORM IN THE
LAKE REGION.
Rises the wild, red dawn over the icicled edges Of black, wet, cavernous rocks, sheeted and winter-scarred, And heaving of grey-green waves, foaming the ice-blocks and ledges, Into this region of death, sky-bounded, solitude-barred.
Turned to the cold kiss of dawn, gilding their weird, dark faces, Lift the cyclopean rocks, silent, motionless, bare; Where high on each haggard front, in deep-plowed, passionate traces The storm hath graven his madness, the night hath furrowed her care.
Out of the far, grey skies comes the dread north with his blowing, That chills the warm blood in the veins, and cuts to the heart like fate. Quick as the fall of a leaf the lake-world is white with his snowing, Quick as the flash of a blade the waters are black with his hate.
God pity the sad-fated vessels that over these waters are driven To meet the rude shock of his strength and shudder at blast of his breath; God pity the tempest-drave sailors, for here naught on wave or in heaven Is heard but the hate of the night, the merciless grinding of death.