THE VOICE OF THINGS

Forty Augusts — aye, and several more — ago,

When I paced the headlands loosed from dull employ,

The waves huzza'd like a multitude below

In the sway of an all-including joy

Without cloy.

Blankly I walked there a double decade after,

When thwarts had flung their toils in front of me,

And I heard the waters wagging in a long ironic laughter

At the lot of men, and all the vapoury

Things that be.

Wheeling change has set me again standing where

Once I heard the waves huzza at Lammas-tide;

But they supplicate now — like a congregation there

Who murmur the Confession — I outside,

Prayer denied.