Page:Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier (1895).djvu/175

Rh :While through my being seems to flow The breath of a new life, the healing of the seas!


 * Now rest we, where this grassy mound
 * His feet hath set
 * In the great waters, which have bound
 * His granite ankles greenly round

With long and tangled moss, and weeds with cool spray wet.


 * Good-by to Pain and Care! I take
 * Mine ease to-day:
 * Here where these sunny waters break,
 * And ripples this keen breeze, I shake

All burdens from the heart, all weary thoughts away.


 * I draw a freer breath, I seem
 * Like all I see—
 * Waves in the sun, the white-winged gleam
 * Of sea-birds in the slanting beam,

And far-off sails which flit before the south-wind free.


 * So when Time’s veil shall fall asunder,
 * The soul may know
 * No fearful change, nor sudden wonder,
 * Nor sink the weight of mystery under,

But with the upward rise, and with the vastness grow.


 * And all we shrink from now may seem
 * No new revealing;
 * Familiar as our childhood’s stream,
 * Or pleasant memory of a dream

The loved and cherished Past upon the new life stealing.


 * Serene and mild the untried light
 * May have its dawning;

And, as in summer’s northern night
 * The evening and the dawn unite,

The sunset hues of Time blend with the soul’s new morning.


 * I sit alone; in foam and spray
 * Wave after wave
 * Breaks on the rocks which, stern and gray,
 * Shoulder the broken tide away,

Or murmurs hoarse and strong through mossy cleft and cave.


 * What heed I of the dusty land
 * And noisy town?
 * I see the mighty deep expand
 * From its white line of glimmering sand

To where the blue of heaven on bluer waves shuts down!


 * In listless quietude of mind,
 * I yield to all
 * The change of cloud and wave and wind;
 * And passive on the flood reclined,

I wander with the waves, and with them rise and fall.


 * But look, thou dreamer! wave and shore
 * In shadow lie;
 * The night-wind warns me back once more
 * To where, my native hill-tops o’er,

Bends like an arch of fire the glowing sunset sky.


 * So then, beach, bluff, and wave, farewell!
 * I bear with me
 * No token stone nor glittering shell,
 * But long and oft shall Memory tell

Of this brief thoughtful hour of musing by the Sea.

as the morning breath of June
 * The southwest breezes play;

And, through its haze, the winter noon
 * Seems warm as summer’s day.

The snow-plumed Angel of the North
 * Has dropped his icy spear;

Again the mossy earth looks forth,
 * Again the streams gush clear.

The fox his hillside cell forsakes,
 * The muskrat leaves his nook,

The bluebird in the meadow brakes
 * Is singing with the brook.

“Bear up, O Mother Nature!” cry
 * Bird, breeze, and streamlet free;

“Our winter voices prophesy
 * Of summer days to thee!”

So, in those winters of the soul,
 * By bitter blasts and drear

O’erswept from Memory’s frozen pole,
 * Will sunny days appear.

Reviving Hope and Faith, they show
 * The soul its living powers,