How Silent The Sea-Waves The Rocks Caress

How silent the sea-waves the rocks caress The breeze That set this evening in the Port The fair precursor of the Autumn’s cool And welcome hand all crossed Over the forehead starred with sweaty drops That shine all starry in the scorching suns And wither as unwelcome pearls: Even so with morning dews That in the first fit of life at dawn The petal-opening flowers soft bedeck These too will wither with the warmth That from the grass arises vapor-like As the red sun ascends from sea’s rim Where long the sea stretches linear and still: And orange-like then gold will paint the waves. Not Raphael seated in some gold-crossed barge Alone amidst the ocean deeps A fairer picture could he paint Or capture the sweet lull of Ocean’s bosom: Basking and surfeiting plays with the gold rays Of the fast-rising Sun nearer by far To the vast wilderness of the Ocean deeps That in the midst of all those waters wild To be lazy dares, will choose to dream. Then will the song of sirens rise Like a sweet-hissing serpent from the shores And from the jutting rocks their voices lull The Ocean already surfeiting to more And more sweet laziness and dreams Fond in the giddiness of their drowsiness: Hist! I hear the siren-call from shore to shore The echo flies over those wild waves That in their madness like blind lovers respond To the sweet-hissing siren calls of morn: And no barge passed And no barge is seen Over that wild expanse of waters wild and raw: The Ocean full prefers to keep alone The secrets or its surfeiting Prohibits the sea-waves rolling to shores Its hours of sweet laziness to unfold Or else be seen or spied by human eyes: But in in majestic waves and raw and bold Will echoing roll his armies white Wave after wave unto the shores of earth That all expectant wait. Not when the blinding Sun in midday wrath Over the red desert scalds the redder sand And aches the pilgrim’s feet or wanderer’s And no oasis in the welcome distance seen And parched are throats but worse Hope still upon some dizzy rock Its radiant smile will fail to shine: So like the desert wanderer The shores of earth expectant the sea-waves To lave their wounds received day by day Await and Hope half-robed will sit On some high eastern rock to watch and wait: Not when the Ganges flows in all its pride Will larger crowds to cleanse pray The wounds and ills received and made that day: How silent the sea-waves weave through the caves That line and grace the opposite shore And in them full rebound with echoes sweet Half-lulled half-heard and unexpected full Into the sweet glooms of those dark caves Tincted from pitch dark by the faint rays That the pale languid moon to them sends As it if in tribute to their Sovran rule: As when the Caliph held in Arab lands His sway over the eastern lands to Ind And heard the timbrels were by Oxus’ shores And one by one over the desert sand Wherein the Caliph’s men encamped were Glittering within the sight of palace gates And all the towers red that shimmering stood Melting in the vapors blue and mirage white Of the vast desert and its lonely sands: And one by one the vassals tribute-bearing Before the Caliph brought their tributes due Carried and cared for from distant lands Where winter snows the dizzy mountains capped. So the still moon his tributary rays shot Unto the depth and stillness of those echoing caves And in the dark silver fingers gleamed over the still waters that cooled the dome That rocky overhung their sleepy charge. And in the even a thousand thoughts and more Sweet sentinels guarding the sacred brain Raced through it. As when in cities fortified the sentinels Unwelcome movements and enemy presence sense In the long distance buried in the dark And folding robes of the oncoming night And down the city-streets with torches bright Give the sad warning of the coming wrongs: So did my thoughts overrun all streets That winding through the brain pass and by-pass Each every nook and zone and site. A skiff of lone dimension plied the sea With slow and lapping oars the wavelets danced And all around the night fell on the waves. Beyond, beyond the cities and the towns Lay dreaming in the night up to the shores In the dark mantle that the night yclept Into this mantle a thousand lights shone bright Some moved, some not, some white or colored were And all together moving like a feast of stars They looked when in the silent dome Of azure heaven the stars celebrate: No bell from the church steeples rang or sound Of voices human was; but in the distant shores The sound of lapping waves the mind becalmed. How skilful the thoughts blended in the night And from the terrace where on the Port I looked An air of sylphs seemed in that night to grace As if with dancing Graces that still place: The minutes passed and more and hours And in the night profound stood I and looked And in my mind the thoughts in thousands teemed No drowsiness my senses held; only thoughts Came treading in an army with no end Long, long the night and full profound Into that peerless quiet full embalmed lay: And the hours of sleep I on the terrace passed Looking at the Port, the waves and the dark sea And in my mind a thousand thoughts full teemed. How many a night wished I to pass like this And never came! How plan we with strategy and yet What comes whenever it comes doth come By sheer chance and accident (so we human say) . How many a night behind the closed windows I Heard the storm roar and knock to enter in: And the strong wind with treacherous claws Like a strange monster roared and cruel full: Awhile in the gelid air the rain drops pattered soon On the still window-panes and I Could by wavering candle-light the drops espy Sliding into streams and rivers small: Awhile the clock the hour struck or else the time And all lay quiet: till from the distant bourn A roar I heard and then the lightning high High and full white into the torrid sky: Sometimes it hideous shrieked, sometimes me thought The wintry billows on the tempest seas it was; Sometimes the Night seemed to talk and shout In the same thunder-clap that roared in it. How pleasant welling in my breast felt I The teeming thoughts, the vague emotions lulled In to that long and wondrous night: While the lone skiff moved closer to the shore And lo! Another skiff appeared in the door That to the Port led from distant seas And after that full many another skiff Passed into the shores and in the night: Sweet Dawn was waking in her bed embalmed When I went down: and in my look I saw A pleasure I had witnessed not before. The Night with me and hand in hand it seemed A half-exhausted with numbed pleasures sweet Seemed to retire to its western cave: Awhile the sea’s vast face turned to more grey And more and more with white it gleamed When Dawn out of her bed arose and walked: The waters still as in the night they lapped The dreaming shores: and far away The Ocean’s breast enchanted immense lay.