A Sea-Side Walk

We walked beside the sea,

After a day which perished silently

Of its own glory—-like the Princess weird

Who, combating the Genius, scorched and seared,

Uttered with burning breath, "Ho! victory!"

And sank adown, an heap of ashes pale;

    So runs the Arab tale.

    The sky above us showed

An universal and unmoving cloud,

On which, the cliffs permitted us to see

Only the outline of their majesty,

As master-minds, when gazed at by the crowd!

And, shining with a gloom, the water grey

    Swang in its moon-taught way.

    Nor moon nor stars were out.

They did not dare to tread so soon about,

Though trembling, in the footsteps of the sun.

The light was neither night's nor day's, but one

Which, life-like, had a beauty in its doubt;

And Silence's impassioned breathings round

    Seemed wandering into sound.

    O solemn-beating heart

Of nature! I have knowledge that thou art

Bound unto man's by cords he cannot sever—-

And, what time they are slackened by him ever,

So to attest his own supernal part,

Still runneth thy vibration fast and strong,

    The slackened cord along.

    For though we never spoke

Of the grey water and the shaded rock,—-

Dark wave and stone, unconsciously, were fused

Into the plaintive speaking that we used,

Of absent friends and memories unforsook;

And, had we seen each other's face, we had

    Seen haply, each was sad.