Part 4

Eel grass rolled by the waves at play In fresh cut swaths like the new mown hay; Lettuce that glints with a fragile sheen: And Irish moss with its mottled green And cream and purple and pink and brown From the matted gulfs where sailors drown!

Algae dyed like a fresh blown rose Red is their telltale hue that glows On the white sands edging the brooding sea. A network of delicate imagery Like the thin fine lines of an etching traced That the blundering surges have not erased.

Harvest from tide tilled fields that bloom Deep down where the sunlight fades in gloom. Gardens of sinister mystery Under the waves of the heaving sea. Gardens the living may never know Where dead men drift in the ebb and flow!

Jungles where fishes and creatures strange Through the lush profusion may freely range. Not for the living but for the dead Are those fields submerged that we may not tread, But their harvest is scattered within our reach By the wild waves mourning along the beach.

BEACH GRASS

Tremulous as elfin lances Are the thin shafts of the beach grass, Blades and tufted points that quiver Eerily to winds of midnight; Magic strings on lyres enchanted, Strings that strum a lilting cadence Played upon by fairy fingers.

Beach grass blades that whirl and struggle In the clutch of boisterous breezes. Needle tips that mark strange circles In the cowering sands beneath them, Tracings of a fairy stylus, Runic etchings vague and ghostlike.

Tenuous roots, like bamboo jointed Delving, burrowing neath the surface Of the rough hewn sand dunes moulded By great Nature’s groping fingers; (Waves and tempests are her fingers) With their living network binding Crumbling sands that melt and vanish - In a woven web of fibre. Threading with tenacious purpose Mantles lovely and protective, Till the battered landscape brightens Smiles through scars and cruel gashes Smiles in glossy, rippling beach grass Undulating in the breezes Like a field of ripened barley.

Beach grass, desperate, clinging, gripping Braving wrath of winter tempests, Scourged by sands that sting like nettles, Blinding clouds that lash and smother, Wet with driven spume and frosted, With the salt and oft half buried, As the tortured dunes roll landward, Uncouth monsters, struggling, straining By the rage of Neptune driven Stumbling, sprawling, lurching onward.

But the beach grass, fragile, yielding Like a seine whose mesh entangles, Binds their heaving bulks together - In a fibrous web of rootlets; Gripping fiercely for each foothold Yielding grudgingly and battling Till the storm winds howl in fury, And the baffled ocean smothers Futile wrath in foam and roaring, Till the lowly beach grass triumphs; Holds in magic chains the forces Of ungovernable chaos.

Beach grass drawing life and nurture From the sterile sands, a living Energy from out the desert. Hardy warrior, silent tamer Of primeval urgings rampant, Barrier to the clamorous ocean, Staunch preserver of the landscape, Not content with curbing surges Or restraining restless sand dunes, How you bless that sterile desert With your wild and pensive beauty; Cover o’er its savage harshness With the mantle of your verdure Till your patient, steadfast purpose Glorifies the vanquished sea shore.

THE SWAMP HERON

“Quawk”, comes that harshly guttural note In the night stillness, hear it? “Quawk”. A hoarse “good hunting” from the throat Of a night heron, feathered gawk, Ungainly, droll, the awkward child And threadbare outcast of the wild.

’Tis not his custom to intrude Where others are, while on his way To his beloved solitude Nor has he overmuch to say; His only greeting is a squawk But filled with cheer, a friendly “Quawk”.

Thanks, humble neighbor of the moors For such philosophy is rare; Though neither grace nor charm are yours You envy no one, nor compare Their lissome poise - your stilt like walk! Their lilting song - your throaty “Quawk”.

He knows, illfavored bird of night The finest feathers in the dark Are little worth, nor pleasing flight Nor beauty’s form with none to mark; Contented but to nightly stalk His supper like a wise old quawk.

THE THROES OF CREATION

Crash and a smother of foam Drowned in a booming roar! That is the way the surge comes home Pounding along the shore.

Hiss and a seething tongue Laps at the crumbling sand! That is the way the sea has wrung Room from the grudging land.

Rasp of the undertow As its white tongue flays the beach, Flensing the pebbles to and fro Into its treacherous reach.

Ever the sob and moan Of the tortured ledges rings Grinding to dust and welding to stone Ever the hammer swings.

Never a solid ground Nor a fixed and steadfast place; Shoals new risen and islands drowned Sculpture the landscape’s face.

Thus were the corners laid For the continents and the seas; That is the way the world was made Out of such conflicts as these.

Up from the ocean’s bed; Into the ocean cast Surging through infinite ages ahead Out of an infinite past.

HOG’S BACK CHURCH

Foursquare it stands! A stalwart witness year by year To courage steadfast but austere. The toilworn hands That shaped its beams and laid its floors Are folded now. The toilers lie In marble dotted rows nearby Though some found graves on distant shores And some were lost at sea! This fickle, carefree world might heed Those iron men of Pilgrim breed, Though rude their lives and stern their bent They built a during monument To strict integrity.

Foursquare it stands! And gazes out o’er Pamet Bay Once whitened by the sails that lay Where now are choking sands. The weathered houses prim and square That marked the hillsides everywhere Have disappeared, But that old church in stately pride Still dominates the countryside; Is still revered.

Foursquare it stands! The dust upon the pulpit lies Whence lurid texts and prophecies Were hurled like burning brands. No more the silent walls are stirred By thunders of Jehovah’s wrath That seekers for the “Narrow Path” Once, trembling, heard; They reverenced an awful Name And glimpsed the pit of quenchless flame In God’s own word.

Foursquare it stands on hallowed ground And from its lonely windswept height A landmark like a beacon light Its spire is seen for leagues around. Though times may change, and changing creeds Are modified to modern needs Still staunch and true, Memorial of a former age It keeps the priceless heritage From olden time to new.

The plaster from the ceiling falls On creaking floors, and in the dead Of night there sounds the ghostly tread Of phantom footsteps. But the walls Still battle with the winter gale That roars about the ancient spire, Nor all its torrents can avail To drown that spark of living fire - The spirit of that temple set On crowning heights, lest men forget!

Foursquare it stands! The bell, long silent, seems to ring And to the world its message fling; “I yield alone to God’s commands. “Though all about may change, not I. “True to my settled destiny “I still remain. “Though constancy be but a wraith “Steadfastly I have kept the faith “And shall maintain “That faith, unfaltering, down the years “Through all the shoals of doubts and fears, “A lighthouse on that shoreless sea “That broadens to Eternity”.

There, like the Sphinx the old church broods Among its deepening solitudes. In simple grandeur let it stand For years unborn, to bless the land, And when its timeworn tower has gone Still may its memory linger on.

* * * * *

_Struck by lightning in a thunder storm on the night of March 21, 1940 and totally destroyed._

BEYOND THE POINT

A ridge of sand dunes barricades the rim Of the horizon like a gilded bar To roving sight; a lonely point, the brim Of earth against the moaning surge. Afar My glances wander, wistfull, ill at ease From longing to explore those far off seas.

The murmuring tide creeps up before my feet And leaves a shell or two, a broken spray Of strange sea growth; then to some chill retreat In ocean’s depths it slowly ebbs away. How blithely thought can trail the screaming terns Beyond the boundaries that the eye discerns!

On the horizon looms that point beside The pathless main, a prison door to me; For I would follow on that restless tide To lands remote beyond a shoreless sea; Through shimmering haze how like a magic wand That dune ridged finger beckons me beyond!

The rolling hills enclose me and the sky Bends overhead, but these are different things; Somehow they do not seem to press so nigh As that wind fretted wall of sand that rings My little world about, and intervenes To shut my vision from enchanted scenes.

And though in happier days I sailed those seas Around the globe upon the buoyant trades To Ceylon, Singapore and Celebes, Beheld their fanes and trod their tropic glades Those voyages leave me still unsatisfied In this lone cottage where I now abide.

Beyond the point what vistas of romance Of golden kingdoms still their wealth unfold: Though fettered by the bonds of circumstance My failing vision and my limbs grown old Among the embers of my memories One lingering flame, adventure, never dies.

THE WINDS OF TIME

O the winds of time sweep the lonely years Like withered leaves down the path of night, And their notes, like a dirge, sound in our ears As our eyes are strained for a glimpse of light. And our sad heart utters a voiceless prayer - Whence do ye come - ye bitter winds, Where do ye go - O where?

Through the swarming suns where the Zodiac’s blaze Fades out in the awful deeps of space, As you hurry us on your unknown ways, Shall our feet leave never a trace? Rushed from the light to the silent dark, Tell us, tell us, O mocking winds Is there a voice - O hark!

And the wondrous things we planned to do In those far off days when our hearts were young. But the task was long and the hours were few And the songs we dreamed of are still unsung. Will our hopes fade out when the light is gone? Whisper, whisper, O pitiless winds, Is there another dawn?

Where are the friends that we used to know? Like the fallen leaves gone one by one. And the scenes that we loved in the long ago Faint shadows still in the setting sun. They have gone - we go - for the wild winds rave - “The path that ye tread in silent dread Leads on to an open grave!”

But those voices hushed, they linger yet Like the haunting chords of a lost refrain. And those scenes we can see with a sweet regret Though their outlines are blurred they still remain Shall they live - those things - in our groping brain, Like the ocean’s surge in an empty shell Nor live elsewhere again?

TO AN AGED WILLOW

Ancient willow, drooping low Gnarled old trunk and withered bough. Though they say you’re dying now I can never have it so.

Massive limbs against the sky Wrestling with the winds of heaven, E’en the thunder crashing levin Like old Ajax you defy.

Where your mournful branches bend Countless birds their nests have made Woodland songsters unafraid. You, old willow, were their friend.

And you sheltered me as well, Often in the summer’s heat Idly musing at your feet I have felt your soothing spell.

Rustling softly through the leaves Pendulous to every air, Peace and solace everywhere Dripped like raindrops from the eaves.

And the white clouds floating by Bore me to the shores of dreams - Blissful yet the memory seems - Loved companion, must you die?

No cathedral’s gloomy nave Or cold monument for me, Rather let me have a tree As a marker for my grave.

And the Land of Yet-to-Be Where sun risen glories play, May it see you clothed some day In immortal greenery.

THE OLD WOODS ROAD

It blunders off through ways obscure The old woods road I used to tread, Until its columned walls immure The sunbeams dripping overhead.

Through scented gloom it seems to wind O’er fallen branches mossy green, And leaving all the world behind Gropes blindly toward a world unseen.

The ancient wheel ruts disappear With pine and scrub oak overgrown, No creaking wain for many a year Has trailed its coverts wild and lone.

“I wonder where that old road goes?” I hear some blithe young voices say And I might tell them if I chose “Back to the land of yesterday.”

THE POVERTY WEED

O the poverty weed is so shabby and poor That she seems to disfigure the land, The russet clad waif of the desolate moor She buries her face in the sand.

Her threadbare old mantle all faded and frayed What beauty can ever adorn? As she cowers in the background this shy desert maid So lowly, despised and forlorn.

But over that moorland in splashes of gold Like sunbeams enriching the gloom, What visions of loveliness seem to unfold When the poverty weed is in bloom!

Aglow are those hillsides once barren and lone And golden those patches of green, When this poor floral outcast comes into her own And the blossoms all bow to their queen.

THE SWEEP OF THE TIDES

Out of the fathomless ocean Shaking the earth with their strides, Chaos resurgent in motion, Battle the foam bearded tides. Titans stupendous, upheaving, Flouting the roaring Monsoon, Hoarse with the joy of achieving Freedom to reach for the moon.

Titans whose dungeons are riven Sped on their turbulent path, Not by Poseidon driven Nor by grim Eolus’ wrath, Clamorous, never delaying, Scouring the outermost dune, Sullen but ever obeying That mocking enchantress - the moon.

Fundy is choked with their foaming, Fiercely they snarl ’round the Horn, Glinting like steel in the gloaming, Patined with gold at morn; White with the ice of the Behring, Green with sargassum strewn Wolves of the deep, never nearing, But ever pursuing the moon.

Round and around and forever Dizzily circling the globe; Torn by impassioned endeavor Clutching, to touch but her robe; Wraithlike that robe, but enduring, Trailing her silvery lune, Woven of moonbeams alluring, Tracing the path to the moon.

Formless, uncouth, terrifying, Goading the indolent seas; Breathing out clouds with their sighing, Draining the deep of its lees, Mountainous troughing and cresting, Then calm as a coral lagoon, Limitless yearning and questing Madness bewitched by the moon.

Monstrous caress of the ocean Fondling the obdurate land, Urged by abyssmal emotion Granite may hardly withstand, Beats of a world olden measure Savage but roughly in tune, Floodtime and ebb at the pleasure Of that horned enchantress - the moon.

Alternate plunge and upheaval Strong as earth giants who strove Grandly in aeons primeval Braving omnipotent Jove; Forces terrific, whose rages Drown out the shrieking Typhoon Storming through infinite ages After a phantom - the moon!

LOST BILLINGSGATE

From Billingsgate the beacons’s flash No longer stabs the quivering dark, But fang like breakers foam and gnash Above its sand bars ribbed and stark. Where whispering grasses used to grow And nesting terns their shelter made, Now snarls the rasping undertow And breezes mutter - half afraid!

For it has gone like Lyonnesse Of Arthur’s reign - enchanted realm Of dreamy eyed forgetfulness That saw the ocean overwhelm Her shores, till e’en the towers were drowned Where Merlin spun his evil spells, And fishers startle - when the sound Wells upward as from sunken bells!

Yes, Billingsgate is lost to view Beneath the all engulfing sea, The lonely Isle the Pilgrims knew - But still it lives in memory. And sometimes in the dead of night We hear the shoal bemoan its fate Clothed in a shroud of breakers white - The ghost of vanished Billingsgate!

TRANSFORMED

A battered thing it seems That salt encrusted drift wood, but the skies Showed never rainbow with more gorgeous dyes Than gild that firelight’s beams.

The cloud banks dull and grey Far in the west, are but a canvas spread For supernatural scenes in gold and red When ends the dying day.

The icy Frost King lays His finger on the leaves and lo, the fires Of fairy land on autumn’s funeral pyres Seem everywhere ablaze.

And so each inner trace Of life’s deep grief and cankered bitterness Is graven in those lines of kindliness Upon an aged face.

HAUNTING ECHOES

The music dies upon the strings But lingers on Like other sweetly treasured things Here once - and gone.

The breeze that blurs the mirror pool Cannot erase The outline of the forest cool Upon its face.

The haunting fragrance of the flowers Of yesterday Not all the intervening hours Can steal away.

And loving friends we used to know Nor e’er forget Although they left us long ago Seem with us yet.

LOST AT SEA

Through bushes half obscured, a marble slab Peers out like a pale face. Inscribed upon Its weathered surface that the lichen growth And winter’s storms have blurred, a few brief words The curious eye may spell with labored care. To “H” and “M” - perhaps - and the terse phrase So haunting in its stark simplicity And pathos, - “Lost at sea.” The changeless gulfs Of ocean knew the dead man mentioned here Where bushes riot o’er an empty grave, But what old friend remembers him today? Ofttimes, no doubt, upon the wet sea sand He traced his name in childhood, while the waves Erased the halting script. Another hand Has etched that name in form more durable; But year by year, the ceaseless ebb and flow Of time’s remorseless tides obliterate The letters shrunken to initials faint, And that last solemn statement - “Lost at sea”. Much has been written on the vanity Of human life, but never penned more tense With meaning than this lonely epitaph Set in a thicket on a crumbling stone.

THE ASPEN

Lonely aspen rising high Straight and true you greet the eye. Bent by every passing breeze Weakest, slenderest of trees; Yet what grace, what stateliness Every leaf and twig express!

Brittle limbs of little worth, How from out thy meager girth May we fashion wood for use? What may be the frail excuse For thy lovely shaft of green On the verge of my ravine?

But the aspen, wise and shy Never deigned to make reply. Swayed to every wandering air Shed its beauty everywhere, Till its friendly dignity Made its message clear to me.

God designed thee, aspen slim Who am I to question Him? In the mighty scheme of things You and I play minor strings Yet your part has been well done Mine is only half begun!

THE SONG OF THE SEA GULLS

Hark how the sea gulls are screaming with glee Piercing as Pipes of Pan! Keening their songs to the beach and the sea Sung since the world began; O’er breakers combing in jubilant strife, Flecked with their foaming and throbbing with life, Here they come homing - O shrill as a fife List to their wild elan!

They are the spirits exultant and free, Up in the clouds they belong. Ever aspiring in skyland to be, Theirs is the verve of the strong. Here they go steering through canyons of air, Onward careering, and eager to dare, Scornful of fearing with never a care List to the lilt of their song!

BROKEN FRAGMENTS

Only a bit of broken glass Half concealed in the tangled grass, But the sunbeam found a pathway through On its arrow flight from the vault of blue And straight through the weed grown thicket came To touch that glass with its kindling flame.

Only a sunbeam’s glinting gold On a splintered bit that we now behold Rich with crimson and purple sheen Autumn yellow and vernal green Until, transfigured, it glows arrayed In the rainbow aura the sunbeam made.

Only an old man bent and gray Gazing into the far-away. Human wreckage forlorn and lone But his face with a sudden glory shone. Was it the sunbeam’s magic wand Or hidden splendors he glimpsed beyond?

Only a bit of shattered glass, And a poor old man that we idly pass, But the shard like a diamond, glittered bright And the time worn face suffused with light, When the gates in the jasper walls swung wide And those broken fragments were glorified.

WORKERS OF MAGIC

Immured in the downy cocoon A marvelous artisan spins With threads like the beams of the moon So gossamer fine. Have the Djinns Who dream in the mulberry trees, O weaver beyond compare, Bewitched with the shimmer of orient seas Your fabric so lustrous and fair? Toiler imprisoned who weaves and weaves A silken glory from naught but leaves.

To the mollusc, tormented, which holds The irritant sand in his shell, What radiant vision unfolds Invoked by the mermaiden’s spell? As he fashions that shape, and imbues It with colors he never has seen, With opalescent and rainbow hues, A pearl with the fairylike sheen Of the sea. O artist whom fate condemns To gild with beauty this queen of gems.

In his desolate attic alone In the gloom of the midnight hour, The poet, despondent, unknown Is thrilled by that wizardly power That the silk worm and pearl oyster feel The urge to create! And his brain Like the anvil resounding to steel In a minstrelsy vibrant with pain, Sends sparkles blazing through singing lines As the verse with his burning thought combines.

MY GOLDEN FLEECE