Sea-Gloom

The sea-gulls restless gleam and glance, The mad white coursers cleave the length Of ocean as they rear and prance And toss their manes in stormy strength.

The day is ending. Raindrops choke The sunset furnaces. The gloom Brings the great steamboat spitting smoke, And beating down its long black plume.

And I, more wan than heaven wide, For land of soot and fog am bound, For land of smoke and suicide-- And right good weather have I found!

How eagerly I now would pierce The gulf that groweth wild and hoar! The vessel rocks. The waves are fierce. The salt wind freshens more and more.

Ah! bitter is my soul's unrest. The very ocean sighing heaves In pity its unhopeful breast, Like some good friend that knows and grieves.

Let be--lost love's despair supreme! Let be--illusions fair that rose And fell from pedestals of dream! One leap! The dark wet ridges close.

Away! ye sufferings gone by, That evermore returning brood, And press the wounds that sleeping lie, To make them weep afresh their blood.

Away! regret, whose crimson heart Hath seven swords. Yea, One, maybe, Doth know the anguish and the smart-- Mother of Seven Sorrows, She!

Each ghostly grief sinks down the vast, And struggles with the waves that throb To close about it, and at last Drown it forever with a sob.

Soul's ballast, treasures of life's hand, Sink! and we'll wreck together down. Pale on the pillow of the sand I'll rest me well at evening brown.

But, now, a woman, as I gaze, Sits in the bridge's darker nook, A woman, who doth sweetly raise Her eyes to mine in one long look.

'T is Sympathy with outstretched arms, Who smileth to me through the gray Of dusk with all her thousand charms. Hail, azure eyes! Green sea, away!

The sea-gulls restless gleam and glance. The mad white coursers cleave the length Of Ocean as they rear and prance And toss their manes in stormy strength.