Classic Poem

A SEASIDE PORTRAIT.


A great, still Shape, alone,
She sits (her harp has fallen) on the sand,
And sees her children, one by one, depart:--
Her cloak (that hides what sins beside her own!)
Wrapped fold on fold about her. Lo,
She comforts her fierce heart,
As wailing some, and some gay-singing go,
With the far vision of that Greater Land
Deep in the Atlantic skies,
Saint Brandan's Paradise!
Another Woman there,
Mighty and wondrous fair,
Stands on her shore-rock:--one uplifted hand
Holds a quick-piercing light
That keeps long sea-ways bright;
She beckons with the other, saying "Come,
O landless, shelterless,
Sharp-faced with hunger, worn with long distress:--
Come hither, finding home!
Lo, my new fields of harvest, open, free,
By winds of blessing blown,
Whose golden corn-blades shake from sea to sea--
Fields without walls that all the people own!"