Long-lined, the foaming chargers of the sea Press onward in the sun, a glittering host, Tossing their plumes and breathing angrily. Long-lined, a seething ocean at their backs, They dash against the rocks. The flying spray Is like the smoke of battle, and the spume Is like the froth of men and beasts at bay, Driven to desperate daring. On and on The long attack is urged, and endlessly. Forever and forever, 'neath the moon That coldly views the onset; through the day, As wheels the steady sun; in winter's blast And summer's brilliant burning, -- still the clash Of angry waves upon the stolid rock, And still they fall defeated back again, And still the silent granite fronts the sea. Thus youth confronts the universe, his head Held haughtily against the surge of fate, Ever defiant of the elements, Of time, or man, or death, or God Himself; Thus youth, in fancied power, in the pride Of ignorant inertness. Wiser they, The waves that know no victory, but still Acknowledge no defeat. Unceasingly They ply their warfare, happy if a grain, A single grain of all the granite mass Is theirs for plunder at the weary end Of twelve months' battering; for so at last, Indubitably so, the rock is theirs, Its haughty head at level with the tide, Its massive battlements a drift of sand. And this I learn, now that my youth is gone. Ah, this I learn, and bow beneath the yoke. God's waves are over me, and all my pride Is scattered grain by grain along the beach, Or swallowed in the caverns of the sea. But be it so; yes, beaten like the sand; Yes, spread abroad for all the winds to toss And the wide ocean to make sport withal, So be it; I am victor even yet. For where the rock was black, the sand is white; And where the rock was sullen, how the sun Sparkles upon the facets of the sand! And where the rock was lonely, children now Play merrily upon the sand's delights; And where the rock was shaken with the shock Of constant battle, in the blessed peace Of all the bending heavens now the sand Lies glad and humble. It is better so; For youth is strong, but age is stronger still, Strong with the power of the sea itself, Pliant beneath the guiding hand of God. |