# Littell's Living Age/Volume 138/Issue 1786/An Hour on the Cliff

From Macmillan's Magazine.
* AN HOUR ON THE CLIFF
* I.
* "Who can strive always? easier to lie down
* And let the bitter waves wash o'er me quite."
* So spoke my heart this eve; a brave face shown
* Before the world is well enough; a light
* Laugh, and an answer prompt to hide, well too —
* But with the laugh and jest my sorrow grew,
* II.
* It grew till forth it drove me to the heights
* Far from the town, above the waters wide.
* No day of sunshine this; no sudden lights
* Striking the gray and scarcely heaving tide;
* No sound, but where the slow waves touch the land,
* And, breaking, leave a foam-fleck on the sand.
* III.
* All seems in harmony — sea, land, and sky —
* With the sad peace of one, who, yielding all,
* No longer fights or strives; I too would try
* To be at peace, shake off this painful thrall,
* Cut out this pricking sorrow' from my heart,
* Lay bare and probe my long-concealed smart.
* IV.
* Not with the future lies my grief, I said;
* (Was it a foolish fancy?) for in spring,
* When all the air is warm, and overhead
* High in the scented pines the finches sing,
* And I can hear the children's voices call
* Their happy mothers, and the sea through all.
* V.
* Then I can dream, as happy as a child,
* And days to come are bright with hope serene,
* No vision seems too lofty or too wild,
* I am a saint, a poet, or a queen!
* But (oh, my love, forgive me!) from the past,
* O’er my life's sunshine, is this shadow cast.
* VI.
* It is the past I cannot, dare not meet.
* Sealed up it is; thrust out of sight, below
* The surface of my days; yet, bitterswreet,
* The mingled past can rise and sting me through.
* Will it be ne'er forgotten? never sleep?
* Although I laugh, and jest, and will not weep?
* VII.
* So I come out upon this cliff to-day
* To dare remember! Thinking that maybe
* If once I face my dread, nor turn away
* Although pain wring my heart, yet I may see
* The spectre of those past two happy years
* Turn to a minist'ring angel thro' my tears.
* VIII.
* I lie upon this dead and stunted heath
* Close to the cliff's edge, that my eye may sweep
* From distant coastlines to the sand beneath,
* Where in his boat a fisher boy's asleep —
* And gazing wide-eyed at the sea, at last,
* Dare with a trembling courage face the past.
* IX.
* A day in summer first, and golden haze
* Upon sub-tropic seas! The little isles,
* Whose wooded peaks are purple in the blaze,
* And glittering sands where one may pace for miles,
* I conjure up; and, by the river broad,
* Just where it meets the sea — a little toward
* X.
* That clump of flowering grass — (O love, you too,
* Do you remember it?) we stand abreast,
* Watching old Watu as the net he threw
* Across the river's mouth; we, silent, lest
* We scare the herrings e'er the tide has run —
* What need of speech between, when souls are one?
* XI.
* Another day, crown of all time, comes back,
* When side by side we wander through the bush,
* Where never feet but ours have worn a track.
* There is your love outspoken in the hush;
* Your ring, twined round my finger, set with a kiss —
* A tendril from the white-starr'd clematis.
* XII.
* A short month later comes an autumn day,
* When the air's keen and clear, and the far hills
* Are capped with gleams of snow. We ride away,
* Up hill and down! A deep content now fills
* Our hearts, and smooths the trouble from your brow;
* Wedded and one, what could divide us now?
* XIII.
* Oh foolish boast! Oh impotence of love!
* Too soon the happy days, the happy years,
* Are gone. All earthly gain and loss but prove
* Your steadfastness; the petty hopes and fears
* Of daily cares, these cannot souls divide;
* We smile and say: "We'll conquer side by side."
* XIV.
* Comes a spring morning, gay with song and shine,
* When Death between us steals, and takes your hand,
* And you are mine no longer; for not mine
* Those unresponsive lips and eyes; I stand
* Among the rustling clover and the grass
* Where they have laid you; mute, I homeward pass,
* XV.
* Ever and ever asking: "Where is he?"
* Not mine these ashes, or this dust; but mine,
* Mine, the young lover pleading passionately!
* The steadfast friend proved by long years; the fine
* Pure spirit, that these last days shone
* Through the worn, wasted flesh — where is he gone?
* .   .   .   .   .   .   .   . XVI.
* Is it an hour only since I went
* Out on the lonely cliff, to sit apart
* And view those years again, with a will bent
* To face the past? Hast thou found peace, my heart?
* At least I’ve wept till I can weep no more,
* And I shall sleep to-night. …
* A. L. L.