Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/349

A SEA-CHANGE, AT KELP ROCK What toil and time should come to pass,

And what delight be missed;

Nor thought thereafter, year by year

Hearing that fresh yet olden song,

To yearn for unreturning joys

That with its joy belong.

A SEA-CHANGE, AT KELP ROCK

at this full noon of summer

There's a touch, unfelt before,

Charms our Coastland, smoothing from her

The last crease her forehead wore:

She, too, drains the sun-god's potion,

Quits her part of anchorite,

Smiles to see her leaden ocean

Sparkle in the austral light;

While the tidal depths beneath her

Palpitate with warmth and love,

And the infinite pure æther

Floods the yearning creek and cove,

Harbor, woodland, promontory,

Swarded fields that slope between,—

And our gray tower, tinged with glory,

Midway flames above the scene.

On this day of all most luring,

This one morn of all the year,

Read I—soul and body curing

In the seaward loggia here—

Once, twice, thrice, that chorus sweetest

(Fortune's darling, Sophokles!)

Of the grove whose steeds are fleetest,

Nurtured by the sacred breeze;

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