Pale minarets of the Prophet pierce
Above it into the white of the skies,
And sails enchanted a thousand years
Flit at its feet while fancy steers.
No face of all its faces to me
Is known—no passion of it or pain.
It is but a city by the sea,
Enshrined forever beyond my eyes!
FULL TIDE
Sea-scents, wild-rose scents,
Bay and barberry too,
Drench the wind, the Maine wind,
That gulls are dipping thro,
With soft hints, sweet hints,
With lull, lure and desire;
With memory-wafts and mysteries,
And all the ineffable histories
Made when the sea and land meet,
And the sun lends nuptial fire.
Sea-foam, and dream-foam,
And which is which, who knows,
When all day long the heart goes out
To every wave that blows,
That blossoms on the bright tide,
Then sheds a shimmering crest
And yields its tossing place to one
Whose blooming is as quickly done—
For beauty is ever swift—begot
Of rapture and unrest.
Sea-deeps, and soul-deeps,
And where shall faith be found
If not within the heart's beat
Or in the surging sound
Of the sea, which is the earth's heart,
Beating with tireless might;
Beating—tho but a tragedy
Life seems on every land and sea;
Beating to bring all breath, somehow,
Out of despair's blight.
THE HERDING
Quietly, quietly in from the fields
Of the grey Atlantic the billows come,
Like sheep to the fold.
Shorn by the rocks of fleecy foam,
They sink on the brown seaweed at home;
And a bell, like that of a bellwether,
Is scarcely heard from the buoy—
Save when they suddenly stumble together,
In herded hurrying joy,
Upon its guidance: then soft music
From it is tolled.