Sea-Weeds.

The sunlight piercing through the blue wave feeds The joyous growths that, clustered from the air, Throw forth their fibres to the Power that breeds Love in the lives above of all things fair — The ever-living Sun, that through man's days Is as the breath of all the thinks and says. Light streams down to them in that watery mist, E'en as thought's splendor in a human mood Life-filling, like a glorious amethyst Among the mountains in their solitude; And the sea-things drink in at every pore The nurture of the light till life is o'er. Till life is o'er, and Death within the ooze Then hides them from the joyous light and air; E'en as, too, in the mind the flaming muse Burns down to ashes in a world made bare With want and woe, and the pain whose defeat Must be by death — when death alone is sweet.