SONGS TO A. H. R.

It is the old old vision, The moonlit sea—and you. I cannot make disseverance Between the two. For all the world's wide beauty To me you seem, All that I love in shadow Or glow or gleam. It is the old old murmur, The sea's sound and your voice. God in his Bliss between them Could make no choice. For all the world's deep music In you I hear: Nor shall I ask death, ever, For aught more dear.

Across the kindling twilight moon A late gull wings to rest. The sea is murmuring underneath Its vast eternal quest. The coast-light flashes over the tide A red and warning eye, And oh the world is very wide, But you are nigh! The stars come out from zone to zone, The wind knows every one And blows their message to my heart, As it has ever done. "They are all God's," it tells me, "all, However huge or high." But ah I could not trust its call— Were you not by!

Not if I chose from a world of days Could I find a day like this. The sky is a wreath of azure haze And the sea an azure bliss. The surf runs racing the young salt wind, Shouting without a fear Over reef, bar, cliff and scaur, Where you and I lie near. O you and I who have watched the sky And sea from many a shore! You, love, and I who will live and die— And watch the sea no more! O joy of the world! Joy of love, Joy that can say to death, "Tho you end all with your wanton pall, We two have had this breath!"

As I hear, thro the midnight sighing, The low ebb-tide withdrawn, And gulls on the dark cliff crying For far discernless dawn, It seems that all life is lying Within your every breath, Yet I can not believe in dying, Or death. As I hear, from the gray church tower, The bell's unfailing sound Peal forth hour after hour To night's lone reaches round, It seems as if Time's wan power Would sear all things apace— All, save in my heart one flower, Your face.

You are not with me—only the moon, The sea and the gulls' cry, out of tune; The myriad cry of the gulls still strewn On the sands where the tide will enter soon. You are not with me, only the breath Of the wind—and then the wind's death. A shrouding silence then that saith, "Even as wind love vanisheth." You are not with me—only fear, As old as earth's first frenzied bier That severed two whose hearts were near, And left one with all Life unclear.

When we two walk, my love, on the path The moon makes over the sea, To the end of the world where sorrow hath An end that is ecstasy, Should we not think of the other road Of wearying dust and stone Our feet would fare did each but care To follow the way alone? When we two slip at night to the skies And find one star that we keep As a trysting-place to which our eyes May lead our souls ere sleep, Should we not pause for a little space And think how many must sigh Because they gaze over starry ways With no heart-comrade by? When we two then lie down to our dreams That deepen still the delight Of our wandering where stars and streams Stray in immortal light, Should we not grieve with the myriads From East of earth to West Who lay them down at night but to drown A longing for some loved breast? Ah, yes, for life has a thousand gifts, But love it is gives life. Who walks thro his world in loneness lifts A soul that is sorrow-rife. But they to whom it is given to tread The moon-path and not sink Can ever say the unhappiest way Earth has is fair, to the brink.

A shoal-light flashes east, And livid lightning west, The silvery dark night-sea between, On which we ride at rest, And gaze far, far away Into the fretless skies, World-sadness in our thought—but ah, Content within our eyes. The ship's bell strikes—the sound Floats shrouded to our ears, Then suddenly, as at a touch, The universe appears A Presence Infinite That penetrates our love And makes us one with night and sea And all the stars above.