vision,
The moonlit sea--and you.
I cannot make disseverance
Between the two.
For all the world's wide beauty
To me you seem,
All that I love in shadow
Or glow or gleam.

It is the old old murmur,
The sea's sound and your voice.
God in his Bliss between them
Could make no choice.
For all the world's deep music
In you I hear:
Nor shall I ask death, ever,
For aught more dear.

II

LOVE AND INFINITY

Across the kindling twilight moon
A late gull wings to rest.
The sea is murmuring underneath
Its vast eternal quest.
The coast-light flashes over the tide
A red and warning eye,
And oh the world is very wide,
But you are nigh!

The stars come out from zone to zone,
The wind knows every one
And blows their message to my heart,
As it has ever done.
"They are all God's," it tells me, "all,
However huge or high."
But ah I could not trust its call--
Were you not by!

III

RECOMPENSE

Not if I chose from a world of days
Could I find a day like this.
The sky is a wreath of azure haze
And the sea an azure bliss.
The surf runs racing the young salt wind,
Shouting without a fear
Over reef, bar, cliff and scaur,
Where you and I lie near.

O you and I who have watched the sky
And sea from many a shore!
You, love, and I who will live and die--
And watch the sea no more!
O joy of the world! Joy of love,
Joy that can say to death,
"Tho you end all with your wanton pall,
We two have had this breath!"

IV

AT THE EBB-HOUR

As I hear, thro the midnight sighing,
The low ebb-tide withdrawn,
And gulls on the dark cliff crying
For far discernless dawn,
It seems that all life is lying
Within your every breath,
Yet I can not believe in dying,
Or death.

As I hear, from the gray church tower,
The bell's unfailing sound
Peal forth hour after hour
To night's lone reaches round,
It seems as if Time's wan power
Would sear all things apace--
All, save in my heart one flower,
Your face.

V

IN A DARK HOUR

You are not with me--only the moon,
The sea and the gulls' cry, out of tune;
The myriad cry of the gulls still strewn
On the sands where the tide will ente