Classic Poem

Just as the traveller, putting forth from land
At sunset, sees the waste on either hand
Widen, and sees the shore
Slowly diminish, till the last land-breeze
Brings the last scent of thyme and scent of trees,—
One faint waft, then no more:

As the night darkens slowly, and the coast
Becomes a faint far shadow, while the host
Of waters wails around;
As still the darkness deepens, till the sail
Stands out alone against the sky—one pale
Ghost on the black background:

As next the gold stars one by one appear,
While the moon dominates with silver sphere
The darkness wide and deep;
As we forget the flower-delights of land,
Holding new star-companions by the hand,
While worlds awake from sleep:

So life starts from green shores and early vales
Full of the scent of thyme, and rich with tales
Of youthful fairy-lore;
So life trends outward, till the deepening blue
Wild waters thrill the heart with laughter new
That answers sail or oar.

So life steers onward, till the ghostly land
Glimmers far-off, while strips of yellow sand
Shine faintly through the haze;
Till on a sudden stars and moon seem close
To the white sail, and sea-wind round us blows,
Not land-wind of the bays.

Then first with awe we face the silent night;
But afterward with solemn deep delight,
Delight that ever grows:
For love seems nearer. If our souls give ear,
Love speaks through starlit waves with voice more clear
Than through the sunlit rose.

Love still is with us in the lonely night;
Though stars and moon and waters and the white
Sail are our only friends.
Love still pervades this awe-inspiring realm,
And still Love's hand is at the vessel's helm,
And still Love's song ascends.

Then, as the sense of earth-life fades away,
Glimmers a faint pure line of distant grey
In front: the dawn is near—
The golden morning in whose ardent rays
A new land, with new cliffs and green-blue bays,
Will make its outline clear.

The middle sea is death. The morning-land,
Full of flower-scents and rich with golden sand
Along its sunlit marge,
Is the new morning-life towards which we haste,
Travelling across the moonlit landless waste,
The flowerless meads and large.

Death's agony, its central pang, is this—
The old thyme-scent upon life's shores to miss
Ere we can trust the new
Eternal sweet illimitable grand
Wild waste of water,—ere the morning-land
Lifts its faint peaks of blue.

This is the agony. But trust the deep;
The stars and waves that through their haunted sleep
Murmur and chant and pray.
Then sweeter than life's cliffs with all their bloom
Shall be death's waves, for just beyond their gloom
Lies unimagined day.