I What is there in a dear dove's eyes, Or voice of mated melodies, That tells us ever of blue skies And cease of deluge on Love's seas? The dove looked down on Jordan's tide Well pleased with Christ the Crucified; The dove was hewed in Karnak stone Before fair Jordan's banks were known. The dove has such a patient look, I read rest in her pretty eyes As in the Holy Book. I think if I should love some day -- And may I die when dear Love dies -- I'd sail brave San Francisco's Bay And seek to see some sea-dove's eyes: To see her in her air-built nest, Her wide, warm, restful wings at rest; To see her rounded neck reach out, Her eyes lean lovingly about; And seeing this as love can see, I then should know, and surely know, That love sailed on with me. II See once this boundless bay and live, See once this beauteous bay and love, See once this warm, bright bay and give God thanks for olive branch and dove. Then plunge headlong yon sapphire sea And sail and sail the world with me. . . . Some isles, drowned in the drowning sun, Ten thousand sea-doves voiced as one; Lo! love's wings furled and wings unfurled; Who sees not this warm, half-world sea, Sees not, knows not the world. How knocks he at the Golden Gate, This lord of waters, strong and bold, And fearful-voiced and fierce as fate, And hoar and old, as Time is old; Yet young as when God's finger lay Against Night's forehead that first day, And drove vast Darkness forth, and rent The waters from the firmament. Hear how he knocks and raves and loves! He woos us through the Golden Gate With all his soft sea-doves. Now on and on, up, down, and on, The sea is oily grooves; the air Is as your bride's sweet breath at dawn When all your ardent youth is there. And oh, the rest! and oh, the room! And oh, the sensuous sea perfume! Yon new moon peering as we passed Has scarce escaped our topmost mast. A porpoise, wheeling restlessly, Quick draws a bright, black, dripping blade, Then sheathes it in the sea. Vast, half-world, wondrous sea of ours! Dread, unknown deep of all sea deeps! What fragrance from thy strange sea-flowers Deep-gardened where God's silence keeps! Thy song is silence, and thy face Is God's face in His holy place. Thy billows swing sweet censer foam, Where stars hang His cathedral's dome. Such blue above, below such blue! These burly winds so tall, they can Scarce walk between the two. Such room of sea! Such room of sky! Such room to draw a soul-full breath! Such room to live! Such room to die! Such room to roam in after death! White room, with sapphire room set 'round, And still beyond His room profound; Such room-bound boundlessness o'erhead As never has been writ or said Or seen, save by the favored few, Where kings of thought play chess with stars Across their board of blue. III The proud ship wrapped her in the red That hung from heaven, then the gray, The soft dove-gray that shrouds the dead And prostrate form of perfumed day: Some noisy, pigmy creatures kept The deck a spell, then, leaning, crept Apart in silence and distrust, Then down below in deep disgust. An albatross, -- a shadow cross Hung at the head of buried day, -- At foot the albatross. Then came a warm, soft, sultry breath -- A weary wind that wanted rest; A breath as from some house of death With flowers heaped; as from the breast Of such sweet princess as had slept Some thousand years embalmed, and kept, In fearful Karnak's tomb-hewn hill, Her perfume and spiced sweetness still, -- Such breath as bees droop down to meet, And creep along lest it may melt Their honey-laden feet. The captain's trumpet smote the air! Swift men, like spiders up a thread, Swept suddenly. Then masts were bare As when tall poplars' leaves are shed, And ropes were clamped and stays were clewed. 'T was as when wrestlers, iron-thewed Gird tight their loins, take full breath, And set firm face, as fronting death. Three small brown birds, or gray, so small, So ghostly still and swift they passed, They scarce seemed birds at all. Then quick, keen saber-cuts, like ice; Then sudden hail, like battle-shot, Then two last men crept down like mice, And man, poor, pigmy man, was not. The great ship shivered, as with cold -- An instant staggered back, then bold As Theodosia, to her waist In waters, stood erect and faced Black thunder; and she kept her way And laughed red lightning from her face As on some gala day. The black sea-horses rode in row; Their white manes tossing to the night But made the blackness blacker grow From flashing, phosphorescent light. And how like hurdle steeds they leapt! The low moon burst; the black troop swept Right through her hollow, on and on. A wave-wet simitar was drawn, Flashed twice, flashed thrice triumphantly, But still the steeds dashed on, dashed on, And drowned her in the sea. What headlong winds that lost their way At sea, and wailed out for the shore! How shook the orient doors of day With all this mad, tumultuous roar! Black clouds, shot through with stars of red; Strange stars, storm-born and fire-fed; Lost stars that came, and went, and came; Such stars as never yet had name. The far sea-lions on their isles Upheaved their huge heads terrified, And moaned a thousand miles. What fearful battle-field! What space For light and darkness, flame and flood! Lo! Light and Darkness, face to face, In battle harness battling stood! And how the surged sea burst upon The granite gates of Oregon! It tore, it tossed the seething spume, And wailed for room! and room! and room! It shook the crag-built eaglets' nest Until they screamed from out their clouds, Then rocked them back to rest. How fiercely reckless raged the war! Then suddenly no ghost of light, Or even glint of storm-born star. Just night, and black, torn bits of night; Just night, and midnight's middle noon, With all mad elements in tune; Just night, and that continuous roar Of wind, wind, night, and nothing more. Then all the hollows of the main Sank down so deep, it almost seemed The seas were hewn in twain. How deep the hollows of this deep! How high, how trembling high the crest! Ten thousand miles of surge and sweep And length and breadth of billow's breast! Up! up, as if against the skies! Down! down, as if no more to rise! The creaking wallow in the trough, As if the world was breaking off. The pigmies in their trough down there! Deep in their trough they tried to pray -- To hide from God in prayer. Then boomed Alaska's great, first gun In battling ice and rattling hail; Then Indus came, four winds in one! Then came Japan in counter mail Of mad cross winds; and Waterloo Was but as some babe's tale unto. The typhoon spun his toy in play And whistled as a glad boy may To see his top spin at his feet: The captain on his bridge in ice, His sailors mailed in sleet. What unchained, unnamed, noises, space! What shoreless, boundless, rounded reach Of room was here! Fit field, fit place For three fierce emperors, where each Came armed with elements that make Or unmake seas and lands, that shake The heavens' roof, that freeze or burn The seas as they may please to turn. And such black silence! Not a sound Save whistling of that mad, glad boy To see his top spin round. Then swift, like some sulked Ajax, burst Thewed Thunder from his battle-tent; As if in pent-up, vengeful thirst For blood, the elements of Earth were rent, And sheeted crimson lay a wedge Of blood below black Thunder's edge. A pause. The typhoon turned, up-wheeled, And wrestled Death till heaven reeled. Then Lightning reached a fiery rod, And on Death's fearful forehead wrote The autograph of God. IV God's name and face -- what need of more? Morn came: calm came; and holy light, And warm, sweet weather, leaning o'er, Laid perfumes on the tomb of night. The three wee birds came dimly back And housed about the mast in black, And all the tranquil sense of morn Seemed as Dakota's fields of corn, Save that some great soul-breaking sigh Now sank the proud ship out of sight, Now sent her to the sky. V One strong, strange man had kept the deck -- One silent, seeing man, who knew The pulse of Nature, and could reck Her deepest heart-beats through and through. He knew the night, he loved the night. When elements went forth to fight His soul went with them without fear To hear God's voice, so few will hear. The swine had plunged them in the sea, The swine down there, but up on deck The captain, God and he. VI And oh, such sea-shell tints of light High o'er those wide sea-doors of dawn! Sail, sail the world for that one sight, Then satisfied, let time begone. The ship rose up to meet that light, Bright candles, tipped like tasseled corn, The holy virgin, maiden morn, Arrayed in woven gold and white. Put by the harp -- hush minstrelsy; Nor bard or bird has yet been heard To sing this scene, this sea. VII Such light! such liquid, molten light! Such mantling, healthful, heartful morn! Such morning born of such mad night! Such night as never had been born! The man caught in his breath, his face Was lifted up to light and space; His hand dashed o'er his brow, as when Deep thoughts submerge the souls of men; And then he bowed, bowed mute, appalled At memory of scenes, such scenes As this swift morn recalled. He sought the ship's prow, as men seek The utmost limit for their feet, To lean, look forth, to list nor speak, Nor turn aside, nor yet retreat One inch from this far vantage-ground, Till he had pierced the dread profound And proved it false. And yet he knew Deep in his earth that all was true; So like it was to that first dawn When God had said, "Let there be light," And thus he spake right on: "My soul was born ere light was born, When blackness was, as this black night. And then that morn, as this sweet morn! That sudden light, as this swift light! I had forgotten. Now, I know The travail of the world, the low, Dull creatures in the sea of slime That time committed unto time, As great men plant oaks patiently, Then turn in silence unto dust And wait the coming tree. "That long, lorn blackness, seams of flame, Volcanoes bursting from the slime, Huge, shapeless monsters without name Slow shaping in the loom of time; Slow weaving as a weaver weaves; So like as when some good man leaves His acorns to the centuries And waits the stout ancestral trees. But ah, so piteous, memory Reels back, as sickened, from that scene -- It breaks the heart of me! "Volcanoes crying out for light! The very slime found tongues of fire! Huge monsters climbing in their might O'er submerged monsters in the mire That heaved their slimy mouths, and cried And cried for light, and crying, died. How all that wailing through the air But seems as some unbroken prayer. One ceaseless prayer that long lorn night The world lay in the loom of time And waited so for light! "And I, amid those monsters there, A grade above, or still below? Nay, Time has never time to care; And I can scarcely dare to know. I but remember that one prayer; Ten thousand wide mouths in the air, Ten thousand monsters in their might, All eyeless, looking up for light. We prayed, we prayed as never man, By sea or land, by deed or word, Has prayed since light began. "Great sea-cows laid their fins upon Low-floating isles, as good priests lay Two holy hands, at early dawn, Upon the altar cloth to pray. Aye, ever so, with lifted head, Poor, slime-born creatures and slime-bred, We prayed. Our sealed-up eyes of night All lifting, lifting up for light. And I have paused to wonder, when This world will pray as we then prayed, What God may not give men! "Hist! Once I saw, -- What was I then? Ah, dim and devious the light Comes back, but I was not of men. And it is only such black night As this, that was of war and strife Of elements, can wake that life, That life in death, that black and cold And blind and loveless life of old. But hear! I saw -- heed this and learn How old, how holy old is Love, However Time may turn: "I saw, I saw, or somehow felt, A sea-cow mother nurse her young. I saw, and with thanksgiving knelt, To see her head, low, loving, hung Above her nursling. Then the light, The lovelight from those eyes of night! I say to you't was lovelight then That first lit up the eyes of men. I say to you lovelight was born Ere God laid hand to clay of man, Or ever that first morn. "What though a monster slew her so, The while she bowed and nursed her young? She leaned her head to take the blow, And dying, still the closer clung -- And dying gave her life to save The helpless life she erstwhile gave, And so sank back below the slime, A torn shred in the loom of time. The one thing more I needs must say, That monster slew her and her young; But Love he could not slay." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AN ANSWER TO THE PARSON by WILLIAM BLAKE THE WILDERNESS TRANSFORMED by PHILIP DODDRIDGE NORTHERN FARMER, OLD STYLE by ALFRED TENNYSON BALLADE OF EGREGIOUSNESS by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS IMAGINATION by WILLIAM ROSE BENET THE SONGS OF SUMMER by MATHILDE BLIND TAKE YOUR CHOICE: ACCORDING TO FRANKLIN P. ADAMS by BERTON BRALEY |