Classic Poem

I

The Mermaiden.

There were jubilant sails on the ocean
And skeleton wrecks on the land;
There were laughters of billows in motion
To dance and to die on the sand.

There were shadowy Thules of islands,
Where Edens of lovers might be;
There was sea to the faraway skylands,
Wild, futile heartbeatings of sea.

There were sea-gods and nymphs in the waters
That burnished the beach with their spray;
All the beautiful sons and the daughters
Of ocean had gathered in play

But the marvel of all, and the jewel,
Was a heart that had worshipped for years,
Which a mermaiden laughing and cruel
Had flung to a tempest of tears.

II

The Seaside Lake.

A lake beside the ocean's brim,
Where velvet lilies dream and swim,
And rushes nod beside the whisper
Of ripples shimmering faint and dim.

Anear, the yearning tempest cries;
It comes from Love's lost paradise;
It leaps against the barring beaches;
It foams in agony, writhes and dies

In vain the surges sob and break;
They cannot reach the prisoned lake,
Nor rive the crystal of its ripples,
Nor kiss one silvery flower awake.

O love, our lives are shored apart,
And all the cyclones of my heart
Can never fling one throbbing billow
Among the refuges where thou art.

III

The Meeting.

Do you remember the night
Of crescented, astral glamor,
The beaches brindled with light,
The foam and the billowy clamor?

Do you remember the bliss
So stealthily sought and hidden?
The clasp, the pressure, the kiss,
That all the gods had forbidden?

Alas that a love for life
Must live and die without token!
That the dearest of words, " My wife "
Must be forever unspoken!

As Heaven is my witness, I
Had gladly cherished that woman
In face of the sea and the sky,
The earth and all that is human

Years hence that evening will beam
Athwart life's ocean of sadness,
And I shall see it, and dream
That loving was naught but gladness.

IV

Remembrance.

I had thought to see her no more,
But I dwell in Thules of fancy,
And she haunteth their every shore
With her beautiful necromancy.

In the midnight's hiddenmost lair,
In the morning's vividest portal,
I discern her aslant on air,
Like a spirit who greets a mortal.

O the delicate, tender gleam
Of the carven Parian features,
Such as sculptors delight to dream
Of in marble for godlike creatures!

As I worship she seems to chase
All of sombreness from my story,
And around me infinite space
Overbrims one moment with glory.

But a moment! And then the spot
Is a cell for the broken-hearted,
And that portraiture, thus forgot,
Is another angel departed.