Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SIPPICAN, by EDWARD NOYES POMEROY


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SIPPICAN, by                    
First Line: It is a perfect summer day
Last Line: "and know ""there is no joy but calm."
Subject(s): Calm; Memory; Sea; Placid; Undisturbed; Tranquility; Ocean


It is a perfect summer day,
My senses rest, my fancies play;
And, rocking in a painted boat,
Recalling scenes in lands remote,
I seem at rest, the shores afloat.

The dear old town, how still it lies.
Like princess fair, with sealéd eyes,
The sleeper of a hundred years.
Long let it sleep ere Greed appears,
To stir its passions and its tears.

The buildings crowd together all
As close as if outdoors were small.
Its homely houses hug the street,
The lapping waters lave its feet,
It rides at anchor like a fleet.

Once, ships were launched here, year by year;
The energy of trade was here.
But shipyards now are overgrown;
Yon lofty warehouse stands alone,
And tumbles its foundation stone.

The stream of business ebbed away,
Like tides from harbor and from bay;
And Commerce frightened from her track
(When war obscured the skies with rack),
Unlike the tides, doth not come back.

And still, as if to compensate
For treatment harsh of adverse fate,
Nature, the grievance to redress,
Doth robe the spot with loveliness,
Healing the hurt with fond caress.

It is a satisfying sight,
The wave is like a mirror bright;
The rocks that in confusion lie,
And with contentment fill the eye,
Are ruins older than the sky.

The merry bathers scream and shout;
The silent skiffs flit in and out;
The fishers to the fishers call;
The hawks, high sailing, poise and fall;
The eye of God is over all.

Southward there toss, in breezy play,
The white-capped waves of Buzzard's Bay;
And, rising as a misty breath,
Like shores beyond the sea of death,
The islands of Elizabeth.

The daylight fails, the twilight falls;
The shadows scale the horizon's walls.
Bird Island light glows and grows low;
The gurgling waters past me flow;
Out, like the tide, my life will go.

This dreamful quiet, this repose,
This scene of peace is tame to those
Who love the "vexed Bermuda's" roar,
Or tumbling surf on Labrador,
Where Ocean's warring waters pour;

Or, goaded by misfortune's stings,
Would view the end of cosmic things—
The desolation of Seguin,
When wind and sea come screaming in,
Where wasteful chaos doth begin.

But, ye who long for perfect peace,
Come here, where agitations cease;
Pour on your trouble this soft balm;
Drink the clear music of this Psalm;
And know "there is no joy but calm."





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