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Title: Sea Changes
Author: Don Marquis [
More Titles by Marquis]
I
MORNING
WE stood among the boats and nets;
We saw the swift clouds fall,
We watched the schooners scamper in
Before the sudden squall;--
The jolly squall strove lustily
To whelm the sheltered street--
The merry squall that piled the seas
About the patient headland's knees
And chased the fishing fleet.
She laughed; as if with wings her mirth
Arose and left the wingless earth
And all tame things behind;
Rose like a bird, wild with delight
Whose briny pinions flash in flight
Through storm and sun and wind.
Her laughter sought those skies because
Their mood and hers were one,
For she and I were drunk with love
And life and storm and sun!
And while she laughed, the Sun himself
Leapt laughing through the rain
And struck his harper hand along
The ringing coast; and that wind-song
Whose joy is mixed with pain
Forgot the undertone of grief
And joined the jocund strain,
And over every hidden reef
Whereon the waves broke merrily
Rose jets and sprays of melody
And leapt and laughed again.
II
MOONLIGHT
We stood among the boats and nets ...
We marked the risen moon
Walk swaying o'er the trembling seas
As one sways in a swoon;
The little stars, the lonely stars,
Stole through the hollow sky,
And every sucking eddy where
The waves lapped wharf or rotten stair
Moaned like some stricken thing hid there
And strangled with its own despair
As the shuddering tide crept by.
I loved her, and I hated her--
Or did I hate myself because,
Bound by obscure, strong, silken laws,
I felt myself the worshiper
Of beauty never wholly mine?
With lures most apt to snare, entwine,
With bonds too subtle to define,
Her lighter nature mastered mine;
Herself half given, half withheld,
Her lesser spirit still compelled
Its tribute from my franker soul:
So--rebel, slave, and worshiper!--
I loved her and I hated her.
I gazed upon her, I, her thrall,
And musing, murmured, What if death
Were just the answer to it all?--
Suppose some dainty dagger quaffed
Her life in one deep eager draught?--
Suppose some amorous knife caressed
The lovely hollow of her breast?"--
She turned a mocking look to mine:
She read the thought within my eyne,
She held me with her look--and laughed!
Now who may tell what stirs, controls,
And shapes mad fancies into facts?
What trivial things may quicken souls
To irrevocable, swift acts?
Now who has known, who understood,
Wherefore some idle thing
May stab with deadlier sting
Than well-considered insult could?--
May spur the languor of a mood
And rouse a tiger in the blood?--
Ah, Christ!--had she not laughed just when
That fancy came! ... for then ... and then ...
A sudden mist dropped from the sky,
A mist swept in across the sea ...
A mist that hid her face from me ...
A weeping mist all tinged with red,
A dripping mist that smelt like blood ...
It choked my throat, it burnt my brain ...
And through it peered one sallow star,
And through it rang one shriek of pain ...
And when it passed my hands were red,
My soul was dabbled with her blood;
And when it passed my love was dead
And tossed upon the troubled flood.
III
MOONSET
But see! ... the body does not sink;
It rides upon the tide
(A starbeam on the dagger's haft),
With staring eyes and wide ...
And now, up from the darkling sea,
Down from the failing moon,
Are come strange shapes to mock at me ...
All pallid from the star-pale sea,
White from the paling moon ...
Or whirling fast or wheeling slow
Around, around the corpse they go,
All bloodless o'er the sickened sea
Beneath the ailing moon!
And are they only wisps of fog
That dance along the waves?
Only shapes of mist the wind
Drives along the waves?
Or are they spirits that the sea
Has cheated of their graves?
The ghosts of them that died at sea,
Of murdered men flung in the sea,
Whose bodies had no graves?--
Lost souls that haunt for evermore
The sobbing reef and hollowed shore
And always-murmuring caves?
Ah, surely something more than fog,
More than starlit mist!
For starlight never makes a sound
And fogs are ever whist--
But hearken, hearken, hearken, now,
For these sing as they dance!
As airily, as eerily,
They wheel about and whirl,
They jeer at me, they fleer at me,
They flout me as they swirl!
As whirling fast or swaying slow,
Reeling, wheeling, to and fro,
Around, around the corpse they go,
They chill me with their chants!
These be neither men nor mists--
Hearken to their chants:
Ever, ever, ever,
Drifting like a blossom
Seaward, with the starlight
Wan upon her bosom--
Ever when the quickened
Heart of night is throbbing,
Ever when the trembling
Tide sets seaward, sobbing,
Shall you see this burden
Borne upon its ebbing:
See her drifting seaward
Like a broken blossom,
Ever see the starlight
Kiss her bruised bosom.
Flight availeth nothing ...
Still the subtle beaches
Draw you back where Horror
Walks their shingled reaches ...
Ever shall your spirit
Hear the surf resounding,
Evermore the ocean
Thwarting you and bounding;
Vainly struggle inland!
Lashing you and hounding,
Still the vision hales you
From the upland reaches,
Goading you and gripping,
Binds you to the beaches!
Ever, ever, ever,
Ever shall her laughter,
Hunting you and haunting,
Mock and follow after;
Rising where the buoy-bell
Clangs across the shallows,
Leaping where the spindrift
Hurtles o'er the hollows,
Ringing where the moonlight
Gleams along the billows,
Ever, ever, ever,
Ever shall her laughter,
Hounding you and haunting,
Whip and follow after!
IV
SUNSET
I stood among the boats
The sinking sun, the angry sun,
Across the sullen wave
Laid the sudden strength of his red wrath
Like to a shaken glaive:--
Or did the sun pause in the west
To lift a sword at me,
Or was it she, or was it she,
Rose for an instant on some crest
And plucked the red blade from her breast
And brandished it at me?
[The end]
Don Marquis's poem: Sea Changes
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