A Sabbath Morning at Sea

Thick sleep, which shut all dreams from me, And kept my inner self apart, And quiet from emotion, Then brake away and left me free, Made conscious of a human heart Betwixt the heaven and ocean.

Then flushed to radiance where they stood, Like statues by the open tomb Of shining saints half risen.— The sun!—he came up to be viewed; And sky and sea made mighty room To inaugurate the vision!

I oft had seen the dawnlight run, As red wine, through the hills, and break Through many a mist's inurning; But, here, no earth profaned the sun! Heaven, ocean, did alone partake The sacrament of morning.

I could not bear to sit alone In nature's fixed benignities, While my warm pulse was moving. Too dark thou art, O glittering sun, Too strait ye are, capacious seas, To satisfy the loving.

It seems a better lot than so, To sit with friends beneath the beech, And call them dear and dearer; Or follow children as they go In pretty pairs, with softened speech As the church-bells ring nearer.