A SEA-MARK.

Rains have left the sea-banks ill to climb:

Waveward sinks the loosening seaboard's floor:

Half the sliding cliffs are mire and slime.

Earth, a fruit rain-rotted to the core,

Drops dissolving down in flakes, that pour

Dense as gouts from eaves grown foul with grime.

One sole rock which years that scathe not score

Stands a sea-mark in the tides of time.

Time were even as even the rainiest clime,

Life were even as even this lapsing shore,

Might not aught outlive their trustless prime:

Vainly fear would wail or hope implore,

Vainly grief revile or love adore

Seasons clothed in sunshine, rain, or rime

Now for me one comfort held in store

Stands a sea-mark in the tides of time.

Once, by fate's default or chance's crime,

Each apart, our burdens each we bore;

Heard, in monotones like bells that chime,

Chime the sounds of sorrows, float and soar

Joy's full carols, near or far before;

Heard not yet across the alternate rhyme

Time's tongue tell what sign set fast of yore

Stands a sea-mark in the tides of time.

Friend, the sign we knew not heretofore

Towers in sight here present and sublime.

Faith in faith established evermore

Stands a sea-mark in the tides of time.