Wrenching the world in wreck asunder,
Black rebellion of hell and night;
Wrath and roar of the rocks and thunder,
Flame and the winds that fight ...
Beating the drift and the hush together,
Waves and winds that the morn makes white;
Calm and peace of the tropic weather
After the typhoon’s might.
Clouds blow by and the storm’s forgotten.
Savage coasts where the sea-cow feeds.
Wash of weeds and the sea-weeds rotten.
And a dead face in the weeds.
None to know him or name him brother;
Only the savage in feathers and beads;
The South-Sea Islander, fitting another
Barb in the shaft he speeds.
Far away where the sea-gulls gather;
Far away where the evening falls,
Lone she stands where the wild waves lather,
Rolling the sea in walls.—
Who shall tell her, the lonely tryster?
Tell her of him on whom she calls?—
Suns that beat on his face and blister?
Stars? or the sea that crawls?
VI
She dreamed that there, beside the ocean sitting,
Alone she watched, when, at her feet, behold!
Between the foam-ridge and the sea-gull’s flitting,
His body rolled.
All was not as it was before they parted;
She dreamed he had remembered, she forgot;
He ’d said he would forget her, angry-hearted,
And yet could not.
And then it seemed that, had she known, she surely
Had given pity when she could not give
Her love to him, who loved her madly, purely,
And bade him live.
And then she dreamed she looked upon the slanted
Hulk of a wreck: and high above the wave,
Worn of the wind and of the cactus planted,
His nameless grave.