The Ocean-Buried

The rippling wind, the long low hum 
     Of breakers on the distant shore,
The very silence of the dumb
Deserted walls, like utterance come 
     From him who loved these scenes before.

O, not in mockery of our pain, 
     The red lips of the flowers, the breath 
Of the deep-hearted sea, and rain 
Of summer blooms call up again 
     The memory of his early death!

But, loved by him, they breathe his name, 
     And hold his living presence near, 
A largening heart, in love the same, 
A mind that burns with purer flame, 
     A Life in all the dying year.

I walk around the bending shore, 
     And see the waves leap 'er the rocks, 
Suck down the pebbles with a roar, 
And full on crags of granite pour 
     And crumble with their thunder-shocks.

TWO VERSES OBSCURED

He could not choose a better bed,
     A fairer tomb than in thy caves,
Where dreamy sea-flowers float and spread
Their purple glories round his head,
     Mixed with the light of emerald waves.

The rocking of thy restless seas
     That ring the granite crags like bells,
Thy coral cliffs, whose bloomy trees
Might seem the haunts of Naiades,
     Or palace where the Sea-king dells;

The mystic sparkle of thy brine,
     As if the play of jewelled feet
Flashed tiny lightnings, far and fine,
With all thy grand and thy divine,
     To his enfranchised soul were sweet.

He loved, he loves them beyond loss!
     And tenderly, as on the rocks
Thy billows lift with amorous toss
The tufts of many-colored miss,
     They lift the brown wealth of his locks!

With action gentle as a girl’s
     They fold him in a cool embrace,
And in among his tangled curls
Sow thick their iris-colored pearls
     And tinge the whiteness of his face,

That while his spirit walks with us,
     And breathes around a holier breath,
The sad Earth-mother, amorous
Of the ‘lorn form she moulded, thus
     Might cheat the very sense of death.