At the Breakers' Edge
THROUGH the wide sky thy north wind’s thunder roars
Resistless, till no cloud is left to flee,
And down the clear, cold heaven unhindered pours
Thine awful moonlight on the winter sea.
The vast, black, raging spaces, torn and wild,
With an insensate fury answer back
To the gale’s challenge; hurrying breakers, piled
Each over each, roll through the glittering track.
I shudder in the terror of thy cold,
As buffeted by the fierce blast I stand,
Watching that shining path of bronzèd gold,
With solemn, shadowy rocks on either hand;
While at their feet, ghastly and white as death,
The cruel, foaming billows plunge and rave.
O Father! where art Thou? My feeble breath
Cries to Thee through the storm of wind and wave.
The cry of all thy children since the first
That walked thy planets’ myriad paths among;
The cry of all mankind whom doubt has cursed,
In every clime, in every age and tongue.
Thou art the cold, the swift fire that consumes;
Thy vast, unerring forces never fail;
And Thou art in the frailest flower that blooms,
As in the breath of this tremendous gale.
Yet, though laws are clear as light, and prove
Thee changeless, ever human weaknI heard the medricks screaming loud and shrill across the bay;
And I wondered to behold all the sky in ruddy gold,
Flashing into fire and flame where the clouds like billows rolled.
Red the sea ran east and west, burning broke each tumbling crest,
Where the waves, like shattered rubies, leaped and fell and could not rest;
Every rock was carmine-flushed, every sail like roses blushed,
Flying swift before the wind from the south that roared and rushed.
“Is it judgment day?” I said, gazing out o’er billows red,
Gazing up at crimson vapors, crowding, drifting overhead,
Listening to the great uproar of the waters on the shore,
To the wild sad-crying sea-birds, buffeted and beaten sore.
“Is the end of time at hand? is this pageant, strange and grand,
A portent of destruction blazing fierce o’er sea and land?”
Then the scarlet ebbed, and slow, sky above and earth below,
Drowned in melancholy purple, seemed with grief to overflow.
And while thus I gazed, the day, growing stronger, turned to gray;
All the transitory splendor and the beauty passed away;
And I recognized the sign of the color poured like wine
In this morn of late October as from clusters of the vine.
'T was the ripeness of the year; soon, I knew, must disappear
All the warmth and light and happiness that made the time so dear;
And again our souls must wait while the bare earth, desolate,
Bore in patience and in silence all the winter’s wrath and hate.
