Page:Flora (Heinemann 1919).djvu/59

 FLOTSAM Screamed the far sea-mew. On the mirroring sands

Bell-shrill the oyster-catchers. Burned the sky.

Couching my cheeks upon my sun-scorched hands,

Down from bare rock I gazed. The sea swung by.

Dazzling dark blue and verdurous, quiet with snow,

Empty with loveliness, with music a-roar,

Her billowing summits heaving noon-aglow,

Crashed the Atlantic on the cliff-ringed shore.

Drowsed in the tumult of that moving deep,

Sense into outer silence fainted, fled;

And rising softly, from the fields of sleep,

Stole to my eyes a lover from the dead;

Crying an incantation, learned where? when?—

White swirled the foam, a fount, a blinding gleam

Of ice-cold breast, cruel eyes, wild mouth—and then

A still dirge echoing on from dream to dream. 33