Classic Poem

FAR NIENTE

Soft languors on the bosom of the deep,
A blissful swoon that takes the sense in thrall;
My hopes are dead, my memory is asleep,
I only lie and watch the waters fall
And lift, and let my tired spirit steep
In sun and sea, as happy as a hound
That lazes on a plot of grassy ground;
Until the dim night shadows come and creep
Between the day and me, and end it all.

NIGHT NOISES .

N O voice of crickets wearing through the night
From skeins of dew in scented summer fields;
No sleep-time chirp of birds, no tree that yields
A solemn sigh when touched by breezes light.
Instead, a throb of engines in their might,
The scurrying seamen with their weird Yo-ho!
The creak of ropes, the lapping of sad waves,
That seem to grieve above forgotten graves,
And gossip on lost ships of long ago.

OFF THE HAVEN

U P stole a fog, a chill and ghastly thing,
That gloomed the sea and hid her face from me;
My soul was like a bird with broken wing;
A dismal bell warned homing barks away.

Then shot a sun-shaft; like a phantom host,
Born of the night and mailed in sullen white,
The riven mists drew off, and lo! the coast
Lay green and glad beyond the waters gray.