A Midsummer Holiday and Other Poems — Background and Themes

Time were even as even the rainiest clime, Life were even as even this lapsing shore, Might not aught outlive their trustless prime: Vainly fear would wail or hope implore, Vainly grief revile or love adore Seasons clothed in sunshine, rain, or rime Now for me one comfort held in store Stands a sea-mark in the tides of time.

Once, by fate's default or chance's crime, Each apart, our burdens each we bore; Heard, in monotones like bells that chime, Chime the sounds of sorrows, float and soar Joy's full carols, near or far before; Heard not yet across the alternate rhyme Time's tongue tell what sign set fast of yore Stands a sea-mark in the tides of time.

Friend, the sign we knew not heretofore Towers in sight here present and sublime. Faith in faith established evermore Stands a sea-mark in the tides of time.

Seaward goes the sun, and homeward by the down We, before the night upon his grave be sealed. Low behind us lies the bright steep murmuring town, High before us heaves the steep rough silent field. Breach by ghastlier breach, the cliffs collapsing yield: Half the path is broken, half the banks divide; Flawed and crumbled, riven and rent, they cleave and slide Toward the ridged and wrinkled waste of girdling sand Deep beneath, whose furrows tell how far and wide Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand.

Star by star on the unsunned waters twiring down. Golden spear-points glance against a silver shield. Over banks and bents, across the headland's crown, As by pulse of gradual plumes through twilight wheeled, Soft as sleep, the waking wind awakes the weald. Moor and copse and fallow, near or far descried. Feel the mild wings move, and gladden where they glide: Silence, uttering love that all things understand, Bids the quiet fields forget that hard beside Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand.

Yet may sight, ere all the hoar soft shade grow brown, Hardly reckon half the lifts and rents unhealed Where the scarred cliffs downward sundering drive and drown, Hewn as if with stroke of swords in tempest steeled, Wielded as the night's will and the wind's may wield. Crowned and zoned in vain with flowers of autumn-tide, Soon the blasts shall break them, soon the waters hide, Soon, where late we stood, shall no man ever stand. Life and love seek harbourage on the landward side: Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand.

Friend, though man be less than these, for all his pride, Yet, for all his weakness, shall not hope abide? Wind and change can wreck but life and waste but land: Truth and trust are sure, though here till all subside Wind is lord and change is sovereign of the strand.

The sea is awake, and the sound of the song of the joy of her waking is rolled From afar to the star that recedes, from anear to the wastes of the wild wide shore. Her call is a trumpet compelling us homeward: if dawn in her east be acold, From the sea shall we crave not her grace to rekindle the life that it kindled before, Her breath to requicken, her bosom to rock us, her kisses to bless as of yore? For the wind, with his wings half open, at pause in the sky, neither fettered nor free, Leans waveward and flutters the ripple to laughter and fain would the twain of us be Where lightly the wave yearns forward from under the curve of the deep dawn's dome, And, full of the morning and fired with the pride of the glory thereof and the glee, Strike out from the shore as the heart in us bids and beseeches, athirst for the foam.

Life holds not an hour that is better to live in: the past is a tale that is told, The future a sun-flecked shadow, alive and asleep, with a blessing in store. As we give us again to the waters, the rapture of limbs that the waters enfold Is less than the rapture of spirit whereby, though the burden it quits were sore, Our souls and the bodies they wield at their will are absorbed in the life they adore-- In the life that endures no burden, and bows not the forehead, and bends not the knee-- In the life everlasting of earth and of heaven, in the laws that atone and agree, In the measureless music of things, in the fervour of forces that rest or that roam, That cross and return and reissue, as I after you and as you after me Strike out from the shore as the heart in us bids and beseeches, athirst for the foam.