_Mutatis Mutandis_
IS it life or is it death?
A whiff of the cool salt scum,
As the whole sea puffed its breath
Against you,—blind and dumb:
This way it answereth.
Nearer the sands it shows
Spotted and leprous tints;
But stay! yon fisher knows
Rock-tokens, which evince
How high the tide arose.
How high? In you and me
’Twas falling then, I think;
Open your heart’s eyes, see
From just so slight a chink
The chasm that now must be.
You sighed and shivered then.
Blue ecstasies of June
Around you, shouts of fishermen,
Sharp wings of sea gulls, soon
To dip—the clock struck ten!
Was it the cup too full,
To carry it you grew
Too faint, the wine’s hue dull
(Dulness, misjudged untrue!),
Love’s flower unfit to cull?
You should have held me fast
One moment, stopped my pace.
Crushed down the feeble, vast
Suggestions of embrace,
And so be crowned at last.
But now! Bare-legged and brown
Bait-diggers delve the sand,
Tramp i’ the sunshine down
Burnt-ochre vestured land,
And yonder stares the town.
A heron screams! I shut
This book of scurf and scum,
Its final pages uncut;
The sea-beast, blind and dumb,
Done with his bellowing? All but!
_Bayard Taylor._