The Poems of William Watson | Page 8

snaky wave, upflung With writhing head and hissing
tongue; The weed whose tangled fibres tell Of some inviolate deep-sea
dell; The faultless, secret-chambered shell, Whose sound is an epitome
Of all the utterance of the sea; Great, basking, twinkling wastes of brine;
Far clouds of gulls that wheel and swerve In unanimity divine, With
undulation serpentine, And wondrous, consentaneous curve, Flashing
in sudden silver sheen, Then melting on the sky-line keen; The
world-forgotten coves that seem Lapt in some magic old sea-dream,
Where, shivering off the milk-white foam, Lost airs wander, seeking
home, And into clefts and caverns peep, Fissures paven with powdered
shell, Recesses of primeval sleep, Tranced with an immemorial spell;
The granite fangs eternally Rending the blanch'd lips of the sea; The
breaker clutching land, then hurled Back on its own tormented world;
The mountainous upthunderings, The glorious energy of things, The
power, the joy, the cosmic thrill, Earth's ecstasy made visible,
World-rapture old as Night and new As sunrise;--this, all this, for you!
So, by Atlantic breezes fanned, You roam the limits of the land, And I
in London's world abide, Poor flotsam on the human tide!-- Nay, rather,
isled amid the stream-- Watching the flood--and, half in dream
Guessing the sources whence it rose, And musing to what Deep it
flows.
For still the ancient riddles mar Our joy in man, in leaf, in star. The
Whence and Whither give no rest, The Wherefore is a hopeless quest;
And the dull wight who never thinks,-- Who, chancing on the sleeping
Sphinx, Passes unchallenged,--fares the best!
But ill it suits this random verse The high enigmas to rehearse, And

touch with desultory tongue Secrets no man from Night hath wrung.
We ponder, question, doubt--and pray The Deep to answer Yea or Nay;
And what does the engirdling wave, The undivulging, yield us, save
Aspersion of bewildering spray? We do but dally on the beach, Writing
our little thoughts full large, While Ocean with imperious speech
Derides us trifling by the marge. Nay, we are children, who all day
Beside the unknown waters play, And dig with small toy-spade the
sand, Thinking our trenches wondrous deep, Till twilight falls, and
hand-in-hand Nurse takes us home, well tired, to sleep; Sleep, and
forget our toys, and be Lulled by the great unsleeping sea.
Enough!--to Cornwall you go down, And I tag rhymes in London town.

TO AUSTIN DOBSON
Yes! urban is your Muse, and owns An empire based on London stones;
Yet flow'rs, as mountain violets sweet, Spring from the pavement
'neath her feet.
Of wilder birth this Muse of mine, Hill-cradled, and baptized with brine;
And 'tis for her a sweet despair To watch that courtly step and air!
Yet surely she, without reproof, Greeting may send from realms aloof,
And even claim a tie in blood, And dare to deem it sisterhood.
For well we know, those Maidens be All daughters of Mnemosyne;
And 'neath the unifying sun, Many the songs--but Song is one.

TO EDWARD CLODD
Friend, in whose friendship I am twice well-starred, A debt not time
may cancel is your due; For was it not your praise that earliest drew,
On me obscure, that chivalrous regard, Ev'n his, who, knowing fame's
first steep how hard, With generous lips no faltering clarion blew,
Bidding men hearken to a lyre by few Heeded, nor grudge the bay to
one more bard? Bitter the task, year by inglorious year, Of suitor at the
world's reluctant ear. One cannot sing for ever, like a bird, For sole
delight of singing! Him his mate Suffices, listening with a heart elate;
Nor more his joy, if all the rapt heav'n heard.

TO EDWARD DOWDEN
ON RECEIVING FROM HIM A COPY OF "THE LIFE OF

SHELLEY"
First, ere I slake my hunger, let me thank The giver of the feast. For
feast it is, Though of ethereal, translunary fare-- His story who
pre-eminently of men Seemed nourished upon starbeams and the stuff
Of rainbows, and the tempest, and the foam; Who hardly brooked on
his impatient soul The fleshly trammels; whom at last the sea Gave to
the fire, from whose wild arms the winds Took him, and shook him
broadcast to the world. In my young days of fervid poesy He drew me
to him with his strange far light,-- He held me in a world all clouds and
gleams, And vasty phantoms, where ev'n Man himself Moved like a
phantom 'mid the clouds and gleams. Anon the Earth recalled me, and a
voice Murmuring of dethroned divinities And dead times deathless
upon sculptured urn-- And Philomela's long-descended pain Flooding
the night--and maidens of romance To whom asleep St. Agnes'
love-dreams come-- Awhile constrained me to a sweet duresse And
thraldom, lapping me in high content, Soft as