Yet when we sit in silence at the board
And shapen silver glitters on the white
Damask, bubbled with flower and glass and scored
With sensuous patterns of the candle light,
One smiles and speaks of ’Sconset Lighthouse flare,
Of sails like wings tapered upon the Sound,
Of tossing cross-rip by the bell buoy, where
The schooners get their ranges outward bound.
49
There falls a silence until someone tells
An old wife’s tale; another speaks of bay,
Another one of canterbury bells,
And someone else of meadows stacked with hay.
The kindling smile goes round, the voices muse,
The light is kind that travels from eye to eye,
And many lonely Island trampings fuse;
Along rut roads go many a memory.
50
With eyes alight we say: “When shall I go
Where the blue chicory twinkles toward the town,
Or Bouncing Bet bathes in a rosy snow,
Or where the night wafts scent across the down;
When shall I breathe the breath of inshore spins,
And see the darkling fern of water-flaws,
And catch the drive of myriad mackerel fins
Where the furred trawler floats its netted jaws!”
51
In spite of foppish talk and city form,
We take the lane and loiter on the crest,
Speaking in terms of Island sun and storm;
The marlins’ tarry smell, the breakers’ breast,
Until across the light and baffling word
There steals the old sea-wind, and with a thrill
The stagnant pools of city minds are stirred,
Incoming tides the vapid channels fill.
52
But we (who know) speak in no idle way,
We hold no rendezvous, nor name an hour;
We make no promise when to go or stay,
We do not plan to gather fruit or flower;
We only tell the Image deep within
Our struggling beings: “Beyond all abodes
And all the challenging, whether we lose or win,
Spirit, we two shall take the Island roads!”