6
The dreary drizzle of white rain at last
Broke, that June morning, into crystal air.
Still round him clung from the three days now past
A meaningless monotony of despair.
For three days he had paced his paneled room
And watched a beaten miry universe;
While ever closer to him drew the gloom
His desultory music could not pierce.
Bedraggled passers, dripping beasts and carts,
Infrequently and darkly plodded by
Like desperate external counterparts
Projected from his spirit's misery.
The real world and the world of his own thought
Had been a waste, blank and of bitter fate;
And every chain of woven chords he wrought
Had jangled off to chaos, desolate.
Now he looked forth, and saw the bays were white
With the contagion of the wind's delight,
And up the red cliffs of the coast
The high foamed waves were tossed.
Full of a cold and self-corrosive mirth
He wandered forth
Out of his lonely house; and straying down
Passed through the scattered town
Whose uncouth streets and fishy smells again
Struck discords in his brain.
Then as his brooding way
Led round the headlands of a rocky bay,
He saw ahead a little white-winged boat
Aimlessly drifting,
Just off the shore afloat
Dipping and lifting,—
In it an unknown girl who toward the land
Stood gazing. And he watched her moveless stand
And measure him with curious scrutiny.
Then suddenly, with a gesture toward the sea,
She broke the silence—“Will you come and sail with me?”
Her eyes were stranger than her words;
Like the swift flight of young adventurous birds
They sought the far horizon, and then turned
Again to him with laughing look that burned
Like June alight.
She stood poised, slender, dressed in flashing white,
Close to the sail, deep blue of sky around.
And for a moment they gazed without a sound;
Till, smiling to see him dumb,
She shot the boat to the rock-edge of the land,
Held out her hand,
And said—“Come!”
Why should she mock him? … Then he knew
Not mocking, but a crazy whim,
Spoke in her words. And as the blue
Of sea and sky swept over him,
A flash of her preposterous mood
Dispelled the lethargy of his brain.
The summer wakened in his blood;
He stumbled into life again.
“Come? Yes!” he said, “although I fear and think
You are a mermaid, to some fishy brink
Plotting to draw me down!”
She laughed—“No, no! Behold, I have two feet!
I am indubitably a mortal and complete.
I will not let you drown!”
He came; she loosed the fluttering sail,
And out across the bay they soared.
No speech,—for what could that avail
Here where the wind and sea were lord?
He marveled at her laughing glance,
Her careless and imperious way;
And thought—“For once, a kindly chance
Brings me a madcap holiday!”—
And to the whimsy of her jest
Became a full conspirator.
The boy within him, long repressed,
Awoke to match the girl in her.
Their eyes that turned from sky and wave
Met sometimes with a comrade-smile,
And sometimes with a wonder, grave
Of speculation. And the while
They rushed through waters lifting strong
Bright spires of foam into the sun;
Across their cheeks the wind's keen song
Dashed till they felt its trumpets run
Along their veins, an heroic shout;
And to each other smiled again
As the boat's prow dipped in and out
Of crested breakers down the plain.
Her blowing hair was like dark mist
Hiding sometimes her eyes and brow
And delicate curve of cheek; her wrist
And arm moved white, holding the bow
With tiller hard into the gale.
The rondure of her throat was bare,
And half her shoulder, cloudy-pale,
Behind its covering glimmered there.
Her eyes were touched with steady light.
As league on league swept rushing by,
Amid the friendly fierce sea-might
Each glance became a glad reply
Of spirits from the tangled days
Released to meet in boundless space.
He watched her swift and eager ways
And changing lights across her face;
And caught her fire,—the flush of one
Fled from the cities to beguile
A tired heart, where wind and sun
Could charm her for a little while
With simpler touch of primal things
And blot away the echoing feet
And intricate importunings
Of life too crowded and too fleet.
Remote seemed all the wonted faces—
They were adventurers of the wind.
They swept into vast unknown spaces—
How far the day-world lay behind!
The tumult of the waves began
To drown them in mad minstrelsy.
He seemed no more a brooding man
But a sure Triton of the sea;
And she behind her stormy hair
A water-wraith, a lightning-child,
A creature of the driven air
To earthly living half-beguiled.
Onward they sped, into the wide
Circle of restless seas and skies.
He drew more close, and at her side
Felt the blown spray whip in his eyes.
Were they above the waves, or under?
What matter, so they both could go?
She turned and looked at him, with wonder
Lighted, like golden foam aglow.
Her eyes had drunk the sunlight wholly;
There seemed no real world to forget;
And their hands touched and closed—and slowly
Their hesitant perturbed lips met.
Then were Titanic powers astir
Under the skies.
He clung to her
And she to him; their hands and eyes
Were locked in spell
As if each would some dawning miracle
Discover or foretell,
As the whole force
Of tumult gathered in its whitening course
Earth, sun, and sea.
He crushed her recklessly—
Her tremulous lips
Whirled his lost brain into a blind eclipse—
And when he saw again, it was to behold
The loose white fold
Of her gown slip from off her bright
Shoulder, and the gold might
Of the sun showered it with triumphant light.
And then
His head sank down against her naked breast—
With desperate arms he pressed
Her slender quivering body, drawn again
Closer to him, and thunderously knew
The winds that shook her being through and through,
And knew her cry for him, as thus maddeningly they strove
In storm of love.
… Suddenly, as one
Awakening from a dream,
She shivered, and turned …
The madness was gone;
The flame that burned
A moment since, now on the stream
Of some fresh current of her soul glided into the void away.
Dimly he heard her say
With tortured smile—
“Not that, not that! Oh let us only be happy a little while!”
And he released her; and without a word
Onward they sped
Toward where the westering sun its cataract poured
On waves ahead;
Baffled and chilled and full of fear
Whither the way might tend,
But knowing well that this dumb struggle here
Was not the end.
Broke, that June morning, into crystal air.
Still round him clung from the three days now past
A meaningless monotony of despair.
For three days he had paced his paneled room
And watched a beaten miry universe;
While ever closer to him drew the gloom
His desultory music could not pierce.
Bedraggled passers, dripping beasts and carts,
Infrequently and darkly plodded by
Like desperate external counterparts
Projected from his spirit's misery.
The real world and the world of his own thought
Had been a waste, blank and of bitter fate;
And every chain of woven chords he wrought
Had jangled off to chaos, desolate.
Now he looked forth, and saw the bays were white
With the contagion of the wind's delight,
And up the red cliffs of the coast
The high foamed waves were tossed.
Full of a cold and self-corrosive mirth
He wandered forth
Out of his lonely house; and straying down
Passed through the scattered town
Whose uncouth streets and fishy smells again
Struck discords in his brain.
Then as his brooding way
Led round the headlands of a rocky bay,
He saw ahead a little white-winged boat
Aimlessly drifting,
Just off the shore afloat
Dipping and lifting,—
In it an unknown girl who toward the land
Stood gazing. And he watched her moveless stand
And measure him with curious scrutiny.
Then suddenly, with a gesture toward the sea,
She broke the silence—“Will you come and sail with me?”
Her eyes were stranger than her words;
Like the swift flight of young adventurous birds
They sought the far horizon, and then turned
Again to him with laughing look that burned
Like June alight.
She stood poised, slender, dressed in flashing white,
Close to the sail, deep blue of sky around.
And for a moment they gazed without a sound;
Till, smiling to see him dumb,
She shot the boat to the rock-edge of the land,
Held out her hand,
And said—“Come!”
Why should she mock him? … Then he knew
Not mocking, but a crazy whim,
Spoke in her words. And as the blue
Of sea and sky swept over him,
A flash of her preposterous mood
Dispelled the lethargy of his brain.
The summer wakened in his blood;
He stumbled into life again.
“Come? Yes!” he said, “although I fear and think
You are a mermaid, to some fishy brink
Plotting to draw me down!”
She laughed—“No, no! Behold, I have two feet!
I am indubitably a mortal and complete.
I will not let you drown!”
He came; she loosed the fluttering sail,
And out across the bay they soared.
No speech,—for what could that avail
Here where the wind and sea were lord?
He marveled at her laughing glance,
Her careless and imperious way;
And thought—“For once, a kindly chance
Brings me a madcap holiday!”—
And to the whimsy of her jest
Became a full conspirator.
The boy within him, long repressed,
Awoke to match the girl in her.
Their eyes that turned from sky and wave
Met sometimes with a comrade-smile,
And sometimes with a wonder, grave
Of speculation. And the while
They rushed through waters lifting strong
Bright spires of foam into the sun;
Across their cheeks the wind's keen song
Dashed till they felt its trumpets run
Along their veins, an heroic shout;
And to each other smiled again
As the boat's prow dipped in and out
Of crested breakers down the plain.
Her blowing hair was like dark mist
Hiding sometimes her eyes and brow
And delicate curve of cheek; her wrist
And arm moved white, holding the bow
With tiller hard into the gale.
The rondure of her throat was bare,
And half her shoulder, cloudy-pale,
Behind its covering glimmered there.
Her eyes were touched with steady light.
As league on league swept rushing by,
Amid the friendly fierce sea-might
Each glance became a glad reply
Of spirits from the tangled days
Released to meet in boundless space.
He watched her swift and eager ways
And changing lights across her face;
And caught her fire,—the flush of one
Fled from the cities to beguile
A tired heart, where wind and sun
Could charm her for a little while
With simpler touch of primal things
And blot away the echoing feet
And intricate importunings
Of life too crowded and too fleet.
Remote seemed all the wonted faces—
They were adventurers of the wind.
They swept into vast unknown spaces—
How far the day-world lay behind!
The tumult of the waves began
To drown them in mad minstrelsy.
He seemed no more a brooding man
But a sure Triton of the sea;
And she behind her stormy hair
A water-wraith, a lightning-child,
A creature of the driven air
To earthly living half-beguiled.
Onward they sped, into the wide
Circle of restless seas and skies.
He drew more close, and at her side
Felt the blown spray whip in his eyes.
Were they above the waves, or under?
What matter, so they both could go?
She turned and looked at him, with wonder
Lighted, like golden foam aglow.
Her eyes had drunk the sunlight wholly;
There seemed no real world to forget;
And their hands touched and closed—and slowly
Their hesitant perturbed lips met.
Then were Titanic powers astir
Under the skies.
He clung to her
And she to him; their hands and eyes
Were locked in spell
As if each would some dawning miracle
Discover or foretell,
As the whole force
Of tumult gathered in its whitening course
Earth, sun, and sea.
He crushed her recklessly—
Her tremulous lips
Whirled his lost brain into a blind eclipse—
And when he saw again, it was to behold
The loose white fold
Of her gown slip from off her bright
Shoulder, and the gold might
Of the sun showered it with triumphant light.
And then
His head sank down against her naked breast—
With desperate arms he pressed
Her slender quivering body, drawn again
Closer to him, and thunderously knew
The winds that shook her being through and through,
And knew her cry for him, as thus maddeningly they strove
In storm of love.
… Suddenly, as one
Awakening from a dream,
She shivered, and turned …
The madness was gone;
The flame that burned
A moment since, now on the stream
Of some fresh current of her soul glided into the void away.
Dimly he heard her say
With tortured smile—
“Not that, not that! Oh let us only be happy a little while!”
And he released her; and without a word
Onward they sped
Toward where the westering sun its cataract poured
On waves ahead;
Baffled and chilled and full of fear
Whither the way might tend,
But knowing well that this dumb struggle here
Was not the end.
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