AFTER SUNSET.
THE sea lies quieted beneath
The after-sunset flush
That leaves upon the heaped grey clouds
The grape’s faint purple blush.
Pale, from a little space in heaven
Of delicate ivory,
The sickle-moon and one gold star
Look down upon the sea.
ON THE BEACH.
NIGHT, a grey sky, a ghostly sea,
The soft beginning of the rain:
Black on the horizon, sails that wane
Into the distance mistily.
The tide is rising, I can hear
The soft roar broadening far along;
It cries and murmurs in my car
A sleepy old forgotten song.
Softly the stealthy night descends,
The black sails fade into the sky:
Is this not, where the sea-line ends,
The shore-line of infinity?
I cannot think or dream: the grey
Unending waste of sea and night,
Dull, impotently infinite,
Blots out the very hope of day.
RAIN ON THE DOWN.
NIGHT, and the down by the sea,
And the veil of rain on the down;
And she came through the mist and the rain to me
From the safe warm lights of the town.