And now a throbbing organ-prelude dwells
On the eternal story of the sea;
Following in undertone, the Litany
Ends like a sobbing wave; and now begins
A tale of life's fore-shortened days; now swells
The tidal triumph of Corinthians.
II
But neither trumpet-blast, nor the hoarse din
Of guns, nor the drooped signals from those mute
Banners, could find a language to salute
The frozen bodies that the ships brought in.
To-day the vaunt is with the grave. Sorrow
Has raked up faith and burned it like a pile
Of driftwood, scattering the ashes while
Cathedral voices anthemed God's To-morrow.
Out from the belfries of the town there swung
Great notes that held the winds and the pagan roll
Of open seas within their measured toll.
Only the bells' slow ocean tones, that rose
And hushed upon the air, knew how to tongue
That Iliad of Death upon the floes.
The Ground-Swell
Three times we heard it calling with a low,
Insistent note; at ebb-tide on the noon;
And at the hour of dusk, when the red moon
Was rising and the tide was on the flow;
Then, at the hour of midnight once again,
Though we had entered in and shut the door
And drawn the blinds, it crept up from the shore
And smote upon a bedroom window-pane;
Then passed away as some dull pang that grew
Out of the void before Eternity
Had fashioned out an edge for human grief;
Before the winds of God had learned to strew
His harvest-sweepings on a winter sea
To feed the primal hungers of a reef.
Magnolia Blossoms
I