And bring to me from the ocean's breast
No crooning lullaby;
But the shout of a bleak storm-riven crest
As it shoulders up in the sodden West
And hurtles down the sky.
That, breathing deep, I may feel the sweep
Of the wind and the driving rain.
For so I know that my heart will leap
To meet the call of the strident deep,
And will thrill to life again.
D.H.
TWO PAGES
FROM THE BOOK OF THE SEA ISLANDS
page one
Shadows
There is deliberateness in all sea-island ways,
As alien to our days as stone wheels are.
The Islands cannot see the use of life
Which only lives for change.
There days are flat,
And all things must move slowly;
Even the seasons are conservative—
No sudden flaunting of wild colors in the fall,
Only a gradual fading of the green,
As if the earth turned slowly,
Or looked with one still face upon the sun
As Venus does—
Until the trees, the fields, the marshes,
All turn dun, dull Quaker-brown,
And a mild winter settles down,
And mosses are more gray.
All human souls are glasses which reflect
The aspects of the outer world;