Classic Poem

AD CARISSIMAM PUELLAM.

A gray Sea wrinkling dark,
And cut on the dim sea-line
A Barque
Becalm'd amid silver shine,

While gazing over the Sea
From an Isle of yellow sands,
Sat we,
Holding a book in our hands!

Do you remember, Dear,
The time and the place and the tale?
The drear
Ocean, the one sad Sail!

We sat there, spirit-stirred,
In the rainy Hebrides
And heard
The wash of the windless seas,

While ever, upraising eyes,
We saw the Ocean, the gray
Cold Skies,
And the Sail afar away!

Still as the still hours fled,
That day of gentle gloom,
We read
Our tale of Death and Doom,—

Of the Outcast woe-begone
Who, 'mid the Tempest's roar,
Drave on
Homeless for evermore.

Dearest, his piteous tale
Made your clear eyes grow dim;
Snow-pale
You read, and you pitied him!

‘How sad, how strange,’ you sigh'd,
Out 'mid the Storms to man,
Denied
The lights of Heaven and Home!

‘Dead, yet a thing with life,
Under the blight and the ban,
At strife
With God, forgotten by Man!’

I whisper'd, ‘Nay, but hear
How he learn'd the Love Divine!’
More near
You crept, and your hand sought mine;

Under those sunless skies,
We follow'd the dark strange theme,
Our eyes
Alive with love and dream;

And then, when the tale was done,
And you turn'd your face to me,
The Sun
Shone out upon the sea:

Rainy and dimly bright
Out of a cloudland pale,
The Light
Stream'd on that lonely Sail! …

We thought of Poets lost
Whose souls still voyage on,
Storm-tost
By His wind, Euroclydon;

Born to divine despairs,
Kingly yet trampled down,
Sad heirs
Of the Martyr's cross and crown.

We thought of the English-born
Childe with the bleeding breast,
All scorn,
Pride, and sublime unrest.

Yea, and that other too,
Pallid and radiant-eyed,
Who drew
The Hyperion glorified!

We thought of Singers dead
Who shared the Outcast's doom
And shed
Songs on the Sea, his Tomb:

Of him who wildly flies
No more on the Waters deep,
But lies
In gray Montmartre, asleep!

[How loud his shrill voice rang!
Yet often his voice grew clear
And sang
Songs that a child might hear!]

Of him who strongly smote
The Scald's harp laurel-crown'd,
Afloat
On a stormy Surge of Sound!

Softly upon my breast
I laid your golden head,
And prest
My lips to your brow, and said:

‘Mine was that Outcast's doom,—
Tost 'mid the surge of shame,
All gloom
Until my Darling came!

‘Scornful of Nature's plan
I nurst my pride and grief,
A man
Stony in unbelief.

‘This little hand of snow
Touch'd the hard rock, my heart,
And lo!
Its stone was cleft apart,—

‘Then came the blessed dew,
The consecrating tears!
I knew
God's Love after all those years!

‘Thus was I saved, redeem'd,
As even His Outcasts are!’
Bright gleam'd
The Light on the seas afar!

We sat there, spirit-stirr'd,
In the rainy Hebrides,
And heard
The wash of the windless seas,

While rainy and dimly bright
Out of its cloudland pale,
The Light
Stream'd on that lonely Sail!