Wind and Ocean
Wind:
How long before daybreak, O watchful brother?
Ocean:
An hour or so. The sun shall rise
And my waves hail him even as when at first
The burning globe upon creation burst
They hailed him, with an ever-new surprise.
Wind:
I hold, with all-pervading sleep,
Earth's ward tonight.
The snake hides under a rock-heap,
The squirrel warms a hollow tree.
Panther and lynx hunt silently.
After a slow interval
Needles of the pine-wood fall
On rivers flowing out of sight.
How is it with thee?
Ocean:
Resigned in law, but not at rest.
Of the kingdom I possessed
Half rebels afar from me.
From my lair with graves I see
What has been moulding what shall be.
Over shelving coasts I tell
Creatures that change and do not hearken well
Of fate and of futurity, —
My memories their prophecy.
Volcanic cliffs rose in the north
At last night's sunset. I went forth.
Now the dark green waters swell
Over them, without a stir
White foam breaks and fades away
Amid the icebergs sluggishly.
There one stronghold have I bound
Against man, the voyager.
Wind:
The troubler and the mystery!
His bones I pasture through the wildernesses,
My dreadful sheep!
Ocean:
In the unfathomed depth of my recesses
His hostile ships a truce unwitting keep.
Strangest of animals! To gain the dowers
That in gods' hands beneficently burn
Of will and science, and their yielded powers
Against himself, a flaming curse, to turn!
Wind:
King of the void, heir of the dark, to inherit
From earth and sea
Compulsion that he names the Holy Spirit,
Like unto me!
( A pause )
How often, brother, we have held communion
In tolerant marshes, where rank, cluttered nests
Screamed round us, and in caverns myriad-eyed,
Encountering in tempest openly
And on the summit of emerging alps,
Before the race of man had come to birth!
Ocean:
Yea, and in tolerant marshes where rank nests
Scream round us, and in caverns myriad-eyed,
Encountering in tempest openly
And on the summit of emerging alps
We shall hold speech together when the name
And trace of man are vanished from the earth.
How long before daybreak, O watchful brother?
Ocean:
An hour or so. The sun shall rise
And my waves hail him even as when at first
The burning globe upon creation burst
They hailed him, with an ever-new surprise.
Wind:
I hold, with all-pervading sleep,
Earth's ward tonight.
The snake hides under a rock-heap,
The squirrel warms a hollow tree.
Panther and lynx hunt silently.
After a slow interval
Needles of the pine-wood fall
On rivers flowing out of sight.
How is it with thee?
Ocean:
Resigned in law, but not at rest.
Of the kingdom I possessed
Half rebels afar from me.
From my lair with graves I see
What has been moulding what shall be.
Over shelving coasts I tell
Creatures that change and do not hearken well
Of fate and of futurity, —
My memories their prophecy.
Volcanic cliffs rose in the north
At last night's sunset. I went forth.
Now the dark green waters swell
Over them, without a stir
White foam breaks and fades away
Amid the icebergs sluggishly.
There one stronghold have I bound
Against man, the voyager.
Wind:
The troubler and the mystery!
His bones I pasture through the wildernesses,
My dreadful sheep!
Ocean:
In the unfathomed depth of my recesses
His hostile ships a truce unwitting keep.
Strangest of animals! To gain the dowers
That in gods' hands beneficently burn
Of will and science, and their yielded powers
Against himself, a flaming curse, to turn!
Wind:
King of the void, heir of the dark, to inherit
From earth and sea
Compulsion that he names the Holy Spirit,
Like unto me!
( A pause )
How often, brother, we have held communion
In tolerant marshes, where rank, cluttered nests
Screamed round us, and in caverns myriad-eyed,
Encountering in tempest openly
And on the summit of emerging alps,
Before the race of man had come to birth!
Ocean:
Yea, and in tolerant marshes where rank nests
Scream round us, and in caverns myriad-eyed,
Encountering in tempest openly
And on the summit of emerging alps
We shall hold speech together when the name
And trace of man are vanished from the earth.
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