Page:The poems of Edmund Clarence Stedman, 1908.djvu/356

THE CARIB SEA Of light where the sun's red sword thrusts home;

But still in a tangled shining chain

They quiver and fall and rise again,

And far before them the wind-borne spray

Is shaken on from their froth and foam,—

And for leagues beyond, in gray and rose,

The sundown shimmering distance glows!

—So bright, so swift, so glad, the sea

That girts the isles of Caribbee.

Do you know the green of those island shores

By the morning sea-breeze fanned?

(The tide on the reefs that guard them roars—

Then slips by stealth to the sand.)

Have you found the inlet, cut between

Like a rift across the crescent moon,

And anchored off the dull lagoon

Close by forest fringes green,—

Cool and green, save for the lines

Of yellow cocoa-trunks that lean,

Each in its own wind-nurtured way,

And bend their fronds to the wanton vines

Beneath them all astray?

Here is no mangrove warp-and-woof

From which a vapor lifts aloof,

But on the beaches smooth and dry

Red-lipped conch-shells lie—

Even at the edge of that green wall

Where the shore-grape's tendriled runners spread

And purple trumpet-creepers fall,

And the frangipani's clusters shed

Their starry sweets withal.

The silly cactuses writhe around,

Yet cannot choose but in grace to mingle,

This side the twittering waters sound,

On the other opens a low green dingle, 326