Dawn by the Sea
Beautiful, cold, freshness of light reveals
The black masts, mirrored with their shadowy spars,
The hill—gloom and the sleeping wharf, and steals
Up magical faint heights of fading stars.
I hear the waves, on the long shingle thrown,
Slowly draw backward, plunge, and never cease.
Against that sea—sound the earth—stillness lone
Builds vaster in the early light’s increase.
O falling blind waves, in my heart you break;
Outcast and far from my own self I seem,
With alien sense in a strange air awake,
The body and projection of a dream.
Turn back, pale Dawn, or bring that light to me
Which yesterday was lost beyond the sea.
