POETRY.
THE SHIP AND THE SEA.
DAY after day, thro' following night on night: Whether twin blue betwixt, or 'mid grey calm, Tempest, or chffi disconsolating fog: Still thro' void air, and 'neath one constant dome
Of mute enormous sky—o'er plain on plain Of lonely, stark, uninterrupted sea—
From circle to exchanged circle of Mere space, changed never: fares upon her way The strong, seaworthy ship And she informs that void. The solitude She peoples, and to all that blank gives point.
Her single presence wakes as to an aim, Touches as tho' to sense, the denizens Of that insensate world. The leashless waves Race at her side, and follow at her heel;
The virgin and clean air dwells in her sails;
And sea-birds, none know whence, sudden appearing, Hover, as round their mother, at her helm.
The sea is gemm'd with her, the sun's wide eye Brightens all day on her, and when night comes, The stars mount up her rigging, the moon sets White feet upon her sharply shadow'd decks, And in her towers of steady snow high-sitting Quietly sings the wind. More: she herself, this world amid, convoys A second world, and other. Sound of lips And light of eyes, a burden of warm breath And hearts toward other hearts that beat, is come Upon the emptiness,—a world of quick Doing, devising consciousness usurps This kingdom of untroubled oneness—plays Its sole pulsating part in this huge 0 Of unspectator'd theatre . . . and then, In its exit as in its entry, brief, Vanishes. The ship passes, and is gone.
A rushing star, thro' Heaven's capacious calm Down-hurling momentary fire: a swift Passion, that strong on some commanding spirit Leaps—fastens—fails : or, an importunate fly, That, buzzing at its little business, One instant of the drowsy noon half wakes, The next, is dead :—invading so, so rules, And ev.en so is pass'd the ship and gone.
She passes. And the indifferent world resumes Its ancient semblance and its own device. Voiceless once more, unpeopled and alone, One vast monotony magnificent, The air, the sea, and the infinite sky Are all. The heart-throbs and the busy minds Are gone; now wordless comes the wind, the light No longer sees itself in human eyes, Nor watch of man is set upon this world. Nevertheless it lives, and has its being. The wind blows on, the sky presides, the sea Her endless journeying round the earth pursues, And onward all the untrodden currents flow. Man come or gone, 'tis equal. Nature still Remains, and still the stable elements Fill their unceasing office. Sweet with salt The free air wanders o'er the wandering waves, Bright shines the sun upon a shipless sea.
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