Or if (like some) thou'st loved in vain,
Or madly wooed the already Won,
—Go when the Passion and the Pain
Their havoc have begun,
And dare the Thunder, rolling up behind
The Deep, to match that hurricane of mind:
Or to the sea-winds, raging on thy pale
Grief-wasted cheek, pour forth as bitter-keen a tale.
X.
For in that sleepless, tumbling tide—
When most thy fever'd spirits reel,
Sick with desires unsatisfied,
—Dwell life and balm to heal.
Raise thy free Sail, and seek o'er ocean's breast
—It boots not what—those rose-clouds in the West,
And deem that thus thy spirit freed shall be,
Ploughing the stars through seas of blue Eternity.
XI.
This mainland life I could not live,
Nor die beneath a rookery's leaves,—
But I my parting breath would give
Where chainless Ocean heaves;
In some gray turret, where my fading sight
Could see the Lighthouse flame into the night,
Emblem of guidance and of hope, to save;
Type of the Rescuer bright who walked the howling wave.
XII.
Nor, dead, amid the charnel's breath
Shall rise my tomb with lies befool'd,
But, like the Greek who faced in death
The sea in life he ruled,[13]
High on some peak, wave-girded, will I sleep,
My dirge sung ever by the choral deep;
There, sullen mourner! oft at midnight lone
Shall my familiar friend, the Thunder, come to groan.
XIII.
Soft Vales and sunny hills, farewell!
Long shall the friendship of your bowers
Be sweet to me as is the smell
Of their strange lovely flowers;
And each kind face, like every pleasant star
Be bright to me though ever bright afar:
True as the sea-bird's wing, I seek my home,
And its glad Life, once more, by boundless Ocean's foam!