de CLEYRE, Voltairine “The Dirge of the Sea”

Come! Come! I have waited long!

My love is old,

My arms are strong;

I would woo thee, now,

With the wave-kiss cold

On they pallid brow;

 

Thou art mine, thou art mine! My very own!

Thine ears shall hear

My eternal moan;

Always near

Thou’It feel my lips,

And the bathing tear

Where my sorrow drips.

 

Thou, my king forever, behold thy throne!

Reign in thy majesty, all alone.

 

None! None wept for thee,

Nearing the verge

Of eternity!

I, thy solemn dirge Will chant for eye

Wide as the wave-merge

Into sky.

 

I love thee! Thou art my chosen own!

Thy heart, like mine,

Was cold as stone,

Thine eyes could shine

Like my blue waves fair;

Thy lips, like wine,

Curved to kisses rare!!

 

Hard as my waves were the eyes that shone,

And the wine as deadly! Come, love, alone!

Float! Float, on the swelling wave!

Long is the hearse,

Wide the grave;

Thy pall is a curse

From the fading shore

A broken verse

From a heart wrung sore!

 

"Life’s stream’s wreck-strown!" Ah, like my own!

The words are low

As a dying groan;

The voice thrills so,

It might rouse thy breast

With pity’s glow,

Wert thou like the rest!

But thou, my hero, wert never known

To feel as a human; thou stoodst, alone.

 

Down! Down! Behold the wrecks!

I strew the deep

With these human specks!

No faith I keep

With their moral trust;

See how I heap

Their crumbling dust!

 

I sneered in their faces, my own, my own,

As they knelt to pray

When the ships went down;

I flung my spray

In their dying eyes,

And laughed at the way

It drowned their cries!

 

On the shore they heard the exultant tone,

And said: "The Sea laughs." Ah, I laughed alone.

 

Now! Now, we twain shall go,

Love-locked,

Laughing so! The fools ye mocked

With your tender eyes,

The trusts ye rocked With your cradling lies,

 

E’en like these wretches, my own, my own,

Shall rot in clay

Or crumbled bone,

Thou shalt hold thy way,

Day-kissed and fair,

Where the wild waves play

In the sun-thick air!

 

My arms, my kiss, my tears, my moan,

Ye shall know for aye, where we wander lone.

Love! Love! Thou wert like to me!

Thy luring gaze

Rolled relentlessly!

The marsh-light blaze

To some human soul,

Down the darkn’ing maze

To Ruin’s goal.

 

Ah, how ye crushed them, my beautiful own!

Like whistled leaves

Around thee stown,

Whirled the dead beliefs

Of each long-mourned life!

Here, no one grieves:

Neither tears nor strife

 

Appeal to the Sea, where its wrecks are thrown!

Thou shalt stand in their midst, and smile, alone!

 

Laugh! Laugh! O form of light!

Death hides

Thy faithless sight!

The flowing tides

Of thy heart are still;

Yet are wrecks thy brides,

For it is my will

 

That that which on earth made thy heaven,

my own,

May strew around

Thy eternal throne!

The gurgling sound

Of the dying cry,

The gushing wound

Of heart-agony,

 

Were thy joy in life! Now the Sea makes known

Thy realm in death! Thy heaven, alone!

 

Years! Years, ye shall mix with me!

Ye shall grow a part

Of the laughing Sea;

Of the moaning heart

Of the glittered wave

Of the sun-gleam’s dart

In the ocean-grave.

 

Fair, cold, and faithless wert thou, my own!

For that I love

Thy heart of stone!

From the heights above

To the depths below,

Where dread things move,

 

There is naught can show

A life so trustless! Proud be thy crown!

Ruthless, like none, save the Sea, alone!

 

— April 1891