  Hollowed and worn by tide on tide The rocks are steep, to the water’s side; Never a swimmer might hope to land With the sheer, sheer rocks upon either hand; Never a ship dare enter in For the sunken reefs are cruel and thin; Only at times a plaintive moan Comes from yon arch in the caverned stone, When the seals that dwell in the ocean cave Rise to look through the lifting wave; Only the gulls as they float or fly Answer the waves with their wind-borne cry. Weeds of the waste uptossed lie there On the sandy space that the tide leaves bare, Ever at ebb some waif or stray That ever the flood wave washes away, And round and round in the lonely bay. And one dwells there in the caves below That only the seals and the seagulls know, And the haunting spirit is passing fair With sea-flowers set in her grey-green hair, But she looks not oft to the daylight skies For the sunshine dazzles her ocean eyes; But now and again the sea-winds say, In the twilight hour of after-day, They have seen her look through her veil of spray. Stilled are the waves when she lies asleep And the stars are mirrored along the deep, The gulls are at rest on the rifted rocks And slumbering round are the ocean flocks, Where the waving oarweeds lull and lull And the calm of the water is beautiful. But ever and aye in the moonless night, When the waves are at war and the surf is white, When the storm-wind howls in the dreary sky, And the storm-clouds break as it whirls them by; When it tears the boughs from the churchyard tree And they think in the world of the folk at sea, When the great cliffs quake in the thunder’s crash You will hear her laugh in the depths below, Where the moving swell is a sheet of snow, Mocking the mariner’s shriek of woe. Let us away, for the sky grows wild And the wind has the voice of a moaning child! And if she looked through her veil of spray, And called and beckoned, you might not stay; You would leap from the height to her cold embrace And drown in the smile of her wanton face! She would carry you under the mazy waves From deep to deep of her ocean caves, Hold you fast with the things that be Held in the drifts of the drifting sea, Round and round for eternity! The sun goes under, away, away! It’s dark and weird by the lonely bay. |
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