Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, MARGARET BENEATH THE WAVES, by AUGUSTA DAVIES WEBSTER


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

MARGARET BENEATH THE WAVES, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I do not weep at night, for then in dreams
Last Line: And let me sleep with her the last sleep of the blest.
Alternate Author Name(s): Home, Cecil; Webster, Mrs. Julia Augusta
Subject(s): Death; Sea; Dead, The; Ocean


I DO not weep at night, for then in dreams
Her angel presence makes my happy sleep
Rich with a life more real and more deep
Than the cold being of the morrow seems;
In the strange midnight hush I lie
In rest, and hear her voice, and know she cannot die.

I do not weep at morn, for then above,
In the pure sapphire of the sunlit sky,
I see the holy smile in her blue eye,
And I am glad with memory of her love;
Through the translucent morning air
I gaze on the bright heaven, and see that she is there.

But when the dull slow eve creeps coldly o'er,
The cruel, evening hour that saw her die,
I hear her sobbing in the chill wind's sigh,
And feel my life shall know her never more;
And then, in wildest woe, I hear
The far off moaning sea I dare not gaze on near.

I hear the dreadful moaning of the sea,
And then my tortured spirit wildly raves,
And all my hate wakes to the hateful waves
That hold her evermore away from me.
Ah! through the quiet of the eve
I hear their hollow sound, and hopeless, vainly grieve.

Oh! cruel deep, how dare I look on thee?
Thou hast my soul in thy dull cells beneath.
Oh! cruel death! oh! tardy-coming death,
That from my sorrow wilt not shelter me,
Oh! take me weary to thy rest,
And let me sleep with her the last sleep of the blest.







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