Beyond the sands I hear the sea-voice calling
With passion all but human in its pain,
While from my eyes the bitter tears are falling,
And all the summer land seems blind with rain;
For out within those waters, cruel, changeless,
She sleeps, beyond all rage of earth or sea,
A smile upon her dear lips, dumb, but waiting,
And I--I hear the sea-voice calling me.
The tide comes in. The moonlight flood and glory
Of that unresting surge thrill earth with bliss,
And I can hear the passionate sweet story
Of waves that waited round her for her kiss.
Sweetheart, they love you; silent and unseeing,
Old Ocean holds his court around you there,
And while I reach out through the dark to find you
His fingers twine the sea-weed in your hair.
The tide goes out and in the dawn's new splendour
The dreams of dark first fade, then pass away,
And I awake from visions soft and tender
To face the shuddering agony of day
For out within those waters, cruel, changeless,
She sleeps, beyond all rage of earth or sea;
A smile upon her dear lips, dumb, but waiting,
And I--I hear the sea-voice calling me.
The Mystery of Randolph's
Courtship
It is said that in order to know a man, one must begin with his
ancestors, and the truth of the saying is strikingly exemplified in
the case of "John Randolph of Roanoke," as he loved to write his name.
His contemporaries have told us what manner of man he was--fiery,
excitable, of strong passions and strong will, capable of great
bitterness, obstinate, revengeful, and extremely sensitive.
"I have been all my life," he says, "the creature of impulse, the
sport of chance, the victim of my own uncontrolled and uncontrollable
sensations, and of a poetic temperament."
He was sarcastic to a degree, proud, haughty, and subject to fits of
Byronic despair and morbid gloom. For these traits we must look back
to the Norman Conquest from which he traced his descent in an unbroken
line, while, on the side of his maternal grandmother, he was the
seventh in descent from Pocahontas, the Indian maiden who married John
Rolfe.
The Indian blood was evident, even in his personal appearance. He was
tall, slender, and dignified in his bearing; his hands were thin, his
fingers long and bony; his face was dark, sallow, and wrinkled, oval
in shape and seamed with lines by the inward conflict which forever
raged in his soul. His chin was pointed but firm, and his lips were
set; around his mouth were marked the tiny, almost imperceptible lines
which mean cruelty. His nose was aquiline, his ears large at the top,
tapering almost to a point at the lobe, and his forehead unusually
high and broad. His hair was soft, and his skin, although dark,
suffered from extreme sensitiveness.
"There is no accounting for thinness of skins in different
animals, human, or brute [he once said]. Mine, I believe to
be more tender than many infants of a month old. Indeed I
have remarked in myself, from my earliest recollection, a
delicacy or effeminacy of complexion, which but for a spice
of the devil in my temper would have consigned me to the
distaff or the needle."
"A spice of the devil" is mild indeed, considering that before he was
four years old he frequently swooned in fits of passion, and was
restored to consciousness with difficulty.
His most striking feature was his eyes. They were deep, dark, and
fiery, filled with passion and great sadness at the same time. "When
he first entered an assembly of people," said one who knew him, "they
were the eyes of the eagle in search of his prey, darting about from
place to place to see upon whom to light. When he was assailed they
flashed fire and proclaimed a torrent of rage within."
The voice of this great statesman was a rare gift:
"One might live a hundred years [says one,] and never hear
another like it. The wonder was why the sweet tone of a
woman was so harmoniously blended with that of a man. His
very whisper could be distinguished above the ordinary tones
of other men. His voice was so singularly clear, distinct,
and melodious that it was a positive pleasure to hear him
articulate anything."
Such was the man who swayed the multitude at will, punished offenders
with sarcasm and invective, inspired fear even in his equals, and
loved and suffered more than any other prominent man of his
generation.
He had many acquaintances, a few friends, and three loves--his mother,
his brother, and the beautiful young woman who held his heart in the
hollow of her hand, until the Gray Angel, taking pity, closed his eyes
in the last sleep.
His mother, who was Frances Bland, married John Randolph in 1769, and
John Randolph, of Roanoke, was their third son.