Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE EXILES, by ELLEN M. HUNTINGTON GATES


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE EXILES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: The sea at the crag's base brightens
Last Line: And close to the storied sea.
Subject(s): Home


THE sea at the crag's base brightens,
And shivers in waves of gold;
And overhead, in its vastness,
The fathomless blue is rolled.
There comes no wind from the water,
There shines no sail on the main,
And not a cloudlet to shadow
The earth with its fleecy grain.
Oh, give in return for this glory,
So passionate, warm, and still,
The mist of a highland valley --
The breeze from a Scottish hill!

Day after day glides slowly,
Ever and ever the same, --
Seas of intensest splendor,
Airs which smite hot as a flame;
Birds of imperial plumage,
Palms straight as columns of fire,
Flutter and glitter around me,
But not so my soul's desire.
I long for the song of the laverock,
The cataract's leap and flash,
The sweep of the red deer's antlers,
The gleam of the mountain ash.

Only when night's quiescent,
And peopled with alien stars,
Old faces come to the casement
And peer through the vine-leaved bars.
No words, but I guess their fancies --
Their dreamings are also mine --
Of the land of the cloud and heather,
The region of "Auld Lang Syne."
Again we are treading the mountains,
Below us broadens the firth,
And billows of light keep rolling
Down leagues of empurpled heath.

Speed swift through the glowing tropics,
Stout ship which shall bear me home;
Oh, pass as a God-sent arrow
Through tempest, darkness, and foam.
Bear up through the silent girdle
That circles the flying earth,
Till there shall blaze on thy compass
The loadstar over the north;
That the winds of the hills may greet us,
That our footsteps again may be
In the land of our hearts' traditions,
And close to the storied sea.





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