"Dust in the dust is for fire and birth,
Beauty and passion and red-lipped mirth,
Fashioned of dust for the blossoming earth,—
Even of you and me."
JEWELS
The sea has worn her ships like precious stones,
That marked her bosom's tremulous unrest;
And for their loss no pendant moon atones
That rides eternally upon her breast.
For sunk armadas or a little boat
She still is wistful as a jewelled queen,
Who bears the burning memory at her throat,
Of barque and sloop and brilliant brigantine.
The epic chanted to each sounding cave
Is all of fleets gone down by lonely shores,—
The shining spars, the sails, the light they gave,
Now scattered darkly on her grievous floors;—
And all the sea's long moan is like a sigh
For ruined ships remembered where they lie.
CHORUS
Always it was the old songs moved us most,
For always there were other voices near,
A silver singing threading like a ghost,
A thinner music than our ears could hear;
So that we sang more softly than we might,
As leaving room for some expected tone;
Our singing was half listening in the night,
For other singing drowned along our own,