'Where shall we sail to-day?'
Thus said, methought,
A Voice--that could be only heard in dreams:
And on we glided without mast or oars,
A fair strange boat upon a wondrous sea.
Sudden the land curved inward, to a bay
Broad, calm; with gorgeous sea-flowers waving slow
Beneath the surface--like rich thoughts that move
In the mysterious deep of human hearts.
But towards the rounded shore's embracing arm,
The little waves leaped, singing, to their death;
And shadowy trees drooped pensive over them,
Like long-fringed lashes over sparkling eyes.
So still, so fair, so rosy in the dawn
Lay that bright bay: yet something seemed to breathe,
Or in the air, or trees, or lisping waves,
Or from the Voice, ay near as one's own soul--
'_There was a wreck last night!_'
A wreck?--and where
The ship, the crew?--All gone. The monument
On which is writ no name, no chronicle,
Laid itself o'er them with smooth crystal smile.
'_Yet was the wreck last night!_'
And, gazing down,
Deep down beneath the surface, we were 'ware
Of cold dead faces, with their stony eyes
Uplooking to the dawn they could not see.
One stirred with stirring sea-weeds: one lay prone,
The tinted fishes glancing o'er his breast:
One, caught by floating hair, rocked daintily
On the reed-cradle woven by kind Death.
'The wreck has been,' then said the deep low Voice,
(Than which not Gabriel's did diviner sound,
Or sweeter--when the stern, meek angel spake:
'See that thou worship not! Not me, but God!')
'The wreck has been, yet all things are at peace,
Earth, sea, and sky. The dead, that while we slept
Struggled for life, now sleep and fear no storm:
O'er them let us not weep when God's heaven smiles.'
So we sailed on above the diamond sands,
Bright sea-flowers, and dead faces white and calm,
Till the waves rocked us in the open sea,
And the great sun arose upon the world.