BY THE SUMMER SEA

Sunlight and shrill cicada and the low,

Slow, sleepy kissing of the sea and shore,

And rumor of the wind. The morning wore

A sullen face of fog that lifted slow,

Letting her eyes gleam through of grayest glow;

Wearing a look like that which once she wore

When, Gloucesterward from Dogtown there, they bore

Some old witchwife with many a gibe and blow.

But now the day has put off every care,

And sits at peace beside the smiling sea,

Dreaming bright dreams with lazy-lidded eyes:

One is a castle, precipiced in air,

And one a golden galleon--can it be

'Tis but the cloudworld of the sunset skies?

An Ode Read August 15, 1907, at the dedication of the monument erected at Gloucester, Massachusetts, in commemoration of the founding of the Massachusetts Bay colony in the year sixteen hundred and twenty-three · 第 21 / 21 题