Classic Poem

THE Voices OF N ATURE

This cluck of water in the tangles —
What said it to the Angles?
What to the Jutes,
This wave sip-sopping round the salt sea-roots?
With what association did it hit on
The tympanum of a Damnonian Briton?
To tender Guinevere, to Britomart,
The stout of heart,
Along the guarded beach
Spoke it the same sad speech
It speaks to me —
This sopping of the sea?

Surely the plash
Of water upon stones,
Encountering in their ears the tones
Of dominant passions masterful,
Made but a bourdon for the chord
Of a great key, that rested lord
Of all the music, straining not the bones
Of Merlin's scull;
And in the ear of Vivian its frets
Were silver castanets,
That tinkled 'mong the vanities, and quickened
The free, full-blooded pulse,
Nor sickened
Her soul, nor stabbed her to the heart.
Strange! that to me this gurgling of the dulse
Allays no smart,
Consoles no nerve,
Rounds off no curve —
Alack!
Comes rather like a sigh,
A question that has no reply —
Opens a deep misgiving
What is this life I'm living —
Our fathers were not so —
Silence, thou moaning wrack!
And yet ... I do not know.
And yet ... I would go back.