The rain shone in her hair,
And her face gleamed in the rain;
And only the night and the rain were there
As she came to me out of the rain.
BEFORE THE SQUALL.
THE wind is rising on the sea,
White flashes dance along the deep,
That moans as if uneasily
It turned in an unquiet sleep.
Ridge after rocky ridge upheaves
A toppling crest that falls in spray
Where the tormented beach receives
The buffets of the sea’s wild play.
On the horizon’s nearing line,
Where the sky rests, a visible wall.
Grey in the offing, I divine
The sails that fly before the squall.
UNDER THE CLIFFS.
BRIGHT light to windward on the horizon’s verge;
To leeward, stormy shadows, violet-black,
And the wide sea between
A vast unfurrowed field of windless green;
The stormy shadows flicker on the track
Of phantom sails that vanish and emerge.
I gaze across the sea, remembering her.
I watch the white sun walk across the sea,
This pallid afternoon,
With feet that tread as whitely as the moon,
And in his fleet and shining feet I see
The footsteps of another voyager.
REQUIES.
O IS it death or life
That sounds like something strangely known
In this subsiding out of strife,
This slow sea-monotone?