Classic Poem

Dark on the ridge of the cold salt wave
The wind-streaks shoot and shiver:
Daylight is gray distant away;
Thro' the cloud streams a twilight river.

Only the gull on his wet white wing
Before me wheels in motion:
No sail nears home; but the falls of foam
Press wearily from the ocean.

Plunging they come to the sandy beach,
And whiten in circles of thunder:
Del .: The fever they hold of a secret untold,
Del .: Like treasures of beauty untasted.

Love, my beloved! 'tis of love they complain
I know by what in me is burning:
The heart of the sea like the heart that's in me,
Is speechless with passionate yearning.

Yet O for them who have lost — have lost:
Ere their eyes are raised & their arms are crost:
Ere the rainbow rise from the tears they weep:
What love see they in the cold cruel deep?

Nothing but one relentless power
That sprung on their darling in evil hour.
And still, like a beast of the wilds
Plays savage pranks with the hapless dead.

Driving them, driving them,