THE SEA MIST by AMOS RUSSEL WELLS

It crept -- crept -- crept --
Into the rooms where people slept,
And breathed on the mirrors till they wept.
In hungry mood
It stole to the pantry crammed with food
And left the taste of its saltness there.
It sat in my chair
And molded the leather. It filled the air
With a great gray ghostly horror that was not light
Nor dark, but a pall and a blight.
It crawled through the trees,
And changed the woods into islanded seas.
It prowled -- prowled -- prowled,
And all that it touched it fouled.
It was not the sea,
My splendid, brave, and glittering sea,
But it held the ocean as it held me,
And hushed its waves with its mystery.

It was not the sea, for out of the sea there came,
With a cheery burst of jubilant flame,
My comrade the sun that put it to shame,
And thrust it away
With its trailings gray,
And its shattered horror that had to obey,
When, lo, a crystalline day!
But still, in the midst of the warmth and glow,
The clearness and fairness, I know, I know,
That out somewhere, beneath the horizon's rim,
Lurks the spectre grim,
And soon, if I turn to sleep,
It will creep -- creep -- creep --
With its empty mysterious dole
Back into the world and back into my soul.

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

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