Tuckanuck

I

I AM content to live the patient day:
The wind sea-laden loiters to the land
And on the glittering gold of naked sand
The eternity of blue sea pales to spray.
In such a world we have no need to pray;
The holy voices of the sea and air
Are sacramental, like a mighty prayer
In which the earth has dreamed its tears away.
We row across the waters' fluent gold
And age seems blessèd, for the world is old.
Softly we take from Nature's open palm
The dower of the sunset and the sky,
And dream an Eastern dream, starred by the cry
Of sea-birds homing through the mighty calm.

II

Thou art the dwelling of unshadowed sun
That spills its metal on the furrowed tide
And vivid grasses when the winds have died
In threads of murmur round the noontide spun.
The cerements of flesh are like a rose
Caressed with light, whose petals, one by one
Unfolding, loose the soul to die upon
The ocean of the air that ebbs and flows.
Perchance the truth is nearer than we deem,
That after grievous pilgrimage and dearth
The soul shall wake and find it close beside;
And see, as visioned in a perfect dream,
The pitiful grave spirit of the earth,
A patient presence sitting at God's side.

III

I know it never shall come again,
This present peace of the great grave sea
And the land that laughs in its sheen of rain,
This friendship of nature to you and me,
While Autumn smiles on us, big and sane.

It never shall come though our love abide,
And this very whisper stirs the grass,
While clear and far on the tortured tide
As now, the sea-birds cry and pass
In years that shall come when our day has died.

It never shall come—must we praise or blame
If every day moulds the world anew?
Better perhaps, but never the same;
If this that we cherish and hold for true
Shall wither and fade to an empty name?

'Tis the woe o' the world! As the moments fly
I war with time in a great despair,
While the first shy star in the purple sky
Steals through the dead day's golden hair
That I love so much though it comes to die.