By the Aurelian Wall and Other Elegies — The White Gull

I

Up by the idling reef-set bell The tide comes in;

And to the idle heart to-day The wind has many things to say;

The sea has many a tale to tell His younger kin.

For we are his, bone of his bone, Breath of his breath;

The doom tides sway us at their will;

The sky of being rounds us still;

And over us at last is blown The wind of death.

II

A hundred years ago to-day There came a soul, A pilgrim of the perilous light, Treading the spheral paths of night, On whom the word and vision lay With dread control.

Now the pale Summer lingers near, And talks to me Of all her wayward journeyings, And the old, sweet, forgotten things She loved and lost and dreamed of here By the blue sea.

The great cloud-navies, one by one, Bend sails and fill From ports below the round sea-verge;

I watch them gather and emerge, And steer for havens of the sun Beyond the hill.

The gray sea-horses troop and roam;

The shadows fly Along the wind-floor at their heels;

And where the golden daylight wheels, A white gull searches the blue dome With keening cry.

And something, Shelley, like thy fame Dares the wide morn In that sea-rover’s glimmering flight, As if the Northland and the night Should hear thy splendid valiant name Put scorn to scorn.

III

Thou heart of all the hearts of men, Tameless and free, And vague as that marsh-wandering fire, Leading the world’s outworn desire A night march down this ghostly fen From sea to sea!

Through this divided camp of dream Thy feet have passed, As one who should set hand to rouse His comrades from their heavy drowse;

For only their own deeds redeem God’s sons at last.

But the dim world will dream and sleep Beneath thy hand, As poppies in the windy morn, Or valleys where the standing corn Whispers when One goes forth to reap The weary land.

O captain of the rebel host, Lead forth and far!

Thy toiling troopers of the night Press on the unavailing fight;

The sombre field is not yet lost, With thee for star.

Thy lips have set the hail and haste Of clarions free To bugle down the wintry verge Of time forever, where the surge Thunders and crumbles on a waste And open sea.

IV

Did the cold Norns who pattern life With haste and rest Take thought to cheer their pilgrims on Through trackless twilights vast and wan, Across the failure and the strife, From quest to quest,-- Set their last kiss upon thy face, And let thee go To tell the haunted whisperings Of unimaginable things, Which plague thy fellows with a trace They cannot know?

So they might fashion and send forth Their house of doom, Through the pale splendor of the night, In vibrant, hurled, impetuous flight, A resonant meteor of the North From gloom to gloom.

V

I think thou must have wandered far With Spring for guide, And heard the shy-born forest flowers Talk to the wind among the showers, Through sudden doorways left ajar When the wind sighed;

Thou must have heard the marching sweep Of blown white rain Go volleying up the icy kills,-- And watched with Summer when the hills Muttered of freedom in their sleep And slept again.

Surely thou wert a lonely one, Gentle and wild;

And the round sun delayed for thee In the red moorlands by the sea, When Tyrian Autumn lured thee on, A wistful child, To rove the tranquil, vacant year, From dale to dale;

And the great Mother took thy face Between her hands for one long gaze, And bade thee follow without fear The endless trail.

And thy clear spirit, half forlorn, Seeking its own, Dwelt with the nomad tents of rain, Marched with the gold-red ranks of grain, Or ranged the frontiers of the morn, And was alone.

VI

One brief perturbed and glorious day!

How couldst thou learn The quiet of the forest sun, Where the dark, whispering rivers run The journey that hath no delay And no return?

And yet within thee flamed and sang The dauntless heart, Knowing all passion and the pain On man’s imperious disdain, Since God’s great part in thee gave pang To earth’s frail part.

It held the voices of the hills Deep in its core;

The wandering shadows of the sea Called to it,--would not let it be;

The harvest of those barren rills Was in its store.

Thine was a love that strives and calls Outcast from home, Burning to free the soul of man With some new life.

How strange, a ban Should set thy sleep beneath the walls Of changeless Rome!

VII

More soft, I deem, from spring to spring, Thy sleep would be Where this far western headland lies With its imperial azure skies, Under thee hearing beat and swing The eternal sea.

Where all the livelong brooding day And all night long, The far sea-journeying wind should come Down to the doorway of thy home, To lure thee ever the old way With the old song.

But the dim forest would so house Thy heart so dear, Even the low surf of the rain, Where ghostly centuries complain, Might beat against thy door and rouse No heartache here.

For here the thrushes, calm, supreme, Forever reign, Whose gloriously kingly golden throats Regather their forgotten notes In keys where lurk no ruin of dream, No tinge of pain.

And here the ruthless noisy sea, With the tide’s will, The strong gray wrestler, should in vain Put forth his hand on thee again-- Lift up his voice and call to thee, And thou be still.

For thou hast overcome at last;

And fate and fear And strife and rumor now no more Vex thee by any wind-vexed shore, Down the strewn ways thy feet have passed Far, far from here.

VIII

Up by the idling, idling bell The tide comes in;

And to the restless heart to-day The wind has many things to say;

The sea has many a tale to tell His younger kin.

The gray sea-horses troop and roam;

The shadows fly Along the wind-floor at their heels;

And where the golden daylight wheels, A white gull searches the blue dome With keening cry.

THE COUNTRY OF HAR