At the Shore

BEFORE that ship, there was no motion,
Before that bird, there was no light:
Just the gray furrows of an ocean,
Just a sky turning into night.

And I had been as not before
In broad deep distances alone:
Just a cold rippling over stone
And the wind whitening the shore.

Yet the dark heart would not be still,
The body would not peaceful lie,
With hopes a sky could not fulfill,
And fear seas could not purify.

That gust of darkening mist was sweet,
The drear uneasy ocean’s breath,
Where, whispering quietly of death,
The wistful ghosts of the deathless meet.

And that bleak unsubstantial sky
Blew dark upon a cloud of white,
And, feeling its empty coldness, I
Knew it would yield no more than night.

The night made one of sea and bird
And sky in a sharply still embrace,
And I turned in the dark for a hand or face
Or some inconsequential word.