XII.
How proud she was! How darkly fair!
How full of faith, of love, of strength!
Her calm, proud eyes! Her great hair’s length,—
Her long, strong, tumbled, careless hair,
Half curled and knotted anywhere,
From brow to breast, from cheek to chin,
For love to trip and tangle in!
XIII.
At last a tall strange sail was seen:
It came so slow, so wearily,
Came creeping cautious up the sea,
As if it crept from out between
The half-closed sea and sky that lay
Tight wedged together, far away.
She watched it, wooed it. She did pray
It might not pass her by, but bring
Some love, some hate, some anything,
To break the awful loneliness
That like a nightly nightmare lay
Upon her proud and pent-up soul
Until it barely brooked control.
XIV.
The ship crept silent up the sea,
And came—
You cannot understand
How fair she was, how sudden she
Had sprung, full-grown, to womanhood:
How gracious, yet how proud and grand;
How glorified, yet fresh and free,
How human, yet how more than good.
XV.
The ship stole slowly, slowly on;—
Should you in Californian field
In ample flower-time behold
The soft south rose lift like a shield
Against the sudden sun at dawn,
A double handful of heaped gold,
Why you, perhaps, might understand
How splendid and how queenly she
Uprose beside that wood-set sea.
The storm-worn ship scarce seemed to creep
From wave to wave. It scarce could keep—
How still this fair girl stood, how fair!
How proud her presence as she stood
Between that vast sea and west wood!
How large and liberal her soul,
How confident, how purely chare,
How trusting; how untried the whole
Great heart, grand faith, that blossomed there!