he shadows sweep:
And after a while will come--unshadowed Sleep.

Here on the rocks that take the turning tide;
Here by the wide lone waves and lonelier wastes of sky,
We keep our poet-watch, as patient poets should,
Questioning earth's commingled ill and good to us.
Yet little of them, or naught, have truly understood.

Bright are the stars, and constellated thick.
To you, so quick to flit along your flickering course,
They seem perhaps as glowing mates in other fields.
And all the knowledge I have gathered yields to me
Scarce more of the great mystery their wonder wields.

For the moon we are waiting--and behold
Her ardent gold drifts up, her sail has caught the breeze
That blows all being thro the Universe always.
So now, little light-keeper, you no more need nurse
Your gleam, for lo! she mounts, and sullen clouds disperse.

And I with aching thought may cease to burn,
And humbly turn to rest--knowing no glow of mine
Can ever be so beauteous as have been to me
Your soft beams here beside the sea's elusive din:
For grief too oft has kindled me, and pain, and the world's sin.

INVOCATION

(_From a High Cliff_)

Sweep unrest
Out of my blood,
Winds of the sea! Sweep the fog
Out of my brain
For I am one
Who has told Life he will be free.
Who will not doubt of work that's done,
Who will not fear the work to do,
Who will hold peaks Promethean
Better than all Jove's honey-dew.
Who when the Vulture tears his breast
Will smile into the Terror's Eyes.
Who for the World has this Bequest--
Hope, that eternally is wise.

I KNOW YOUR HEART, O SEA!

I know your heart, O Sea!
You are tossed with cold desire to flood earth utterly;
You run at the cliffs, you fling wild billows at beaches,
You reach at islands with fingers of foam to crumble them;
Yes, even at mountain tops you shout your purpose
Of making the earth a shoreless circle of waters!

I know your surging heart!
Tides mighty and all-contemptuous rise within it,
Tides spurred by the wind to champ and charge and thunder--
Tho the sun and moon rein them--
At the troubling land, the breeding-place of mortals,
Of men who are ever transmuting life to spirit,
And ever taking your salt to savor their tears.

I know your tides, I know them!
"Down," they rage, "with the quest