Year: 1860

SEA DREAMS. AN IDYLL.
A CITY clerk, but gently born and bred
His wife, an unknown artists orphan child
One babe was theirs, a Margaret, three years


old


They thinking that her clear germander eye
Droopt in the giaut-hctoried city gloom,
Came, with a months leave given them, to the





For which his gains were dock'd. however small .
His gains were small, ami hard his work be-


sides


Their slender household fortunes (for the man
Had riskd his little) like the little thrift,
Trembled in perlous places DER deep
And oft, when sitting all alone his face
Would darken, as he curse his creIul0usncsS,
And that one unctuous mouth which ured him.


rogue.


IT, buy wild shares in some Peruvian mine.
Now scaward-bound for health they sain'd


coast.


All sand and elf ani deep-inrunning cave.
At close Of day slept, woke, and went the next,
The Sabbath, pious variers from the church,
To chapel where a heated pulWteer,
Not preaching simple Christ 10 simple men,
Announced the coming doom, and Illuminated
Against the scarlet woman and her creed
For sideways up he swung his arms, and shrek
Thus, thus with violence. ev'n as if he held
The Apocayptic milestone and himself
We're that great Angel Thu, with violence
Shall Babylon be cast into the sea
Then comes the close The gentle-hearted wife
Sat shuddering at the ruin Of world
He at his own but when the wordy storm
Had ended, forth they moved and paced the


sand,


Ran in and out the long sea framing caves,
Drank the large air, and saw, but scarce be-


lieved


(The soothake Of 50 many summer still
Clung 10 their fance-) that they saw, the sea
So now on sand they walkd, and now on clt,
Lingering about the thymy promontories,
Until the sails were darkeu'd In the west
And rosed in the east then homeward and to


bed


Where she, who kept a tender Christian hope
Haunting holy text, and still 60 that
Returning as the bird returns, at night
Let not the sun 90 down upon your wrath,
said. Love, forgive him but he did not


speak


And silenced by that silence lay the wife,
Remembering our dear Lord who died for all,
And musing on the little lives Of men,
And how they mar this little by their teuds
But while the two were sleeping, a full tide
Rose with ground swell, which, on the foremost


rocks


Touching. upietted in spirits Of wild sea-smoke,
And scaled in sheets Of wasteful foam, and fell
In vast sea-cataracts-ever and anon
Dead caps Of thunder from within the cliffs
Heard through the living roar At this the


babe,


Their Margaret Graded near them, valid and


woke


The mother and the father suddenly cried,
"A wreck, wreck then turn'd, and groaning,


said


Forgive How many will say, forgive and


find


sort of absolution in the sound
To hate a little longer No the sin
That neither God nor man can well forgive,
Hypocrisy saw it in him at once.
Il is not true that second thoughts are best,
But first and third, which are a riper first
Too ripe too late they come too late tor use.
All love there surely lives in man and beast
Something divine to warn them of their foes
And such sense, when first l lighted on him,
Said % trust him not but after, when i came
To know him more, 1 lost it, knew him less
Fought with what seemd my own uncharity
Sat at his table drank his costly wines
Made more and more allowance for his talk
Went further. fool : and trusted him with ALL
All nv poor scrapings from dozen years
OF dust and deskwork there is such mine,
None but a gulf of ruin, swallowing gold,
Not making. Ruin'd ruin'd the sea roars
Ruin a fearful night


Not fearful fair
Said the good wife, if every star in heaven
Can make it fsir you do but hear the tide.
Had you i'll dreams


ooh yes he said, I dreamd
or sucb tide swelling toward the land,
And [ from out the boundless outer deep
Swept with it to the shore, and enterd one
Of those dark caves that run beneath The cliffs.
Thought the motion Of the boundless deep
Bore through the cave, and l was heaved upon II
In darkness then l one lovely star
Larger and larger. "What world l thought
erTo live in =" but in moving on l found.
Only the landward exit of the cave,
BRIGHT with the sun upon the stream beyond
And near the light a giant woman SAT,
An over earthly, like piece of earth,
nick-axe in her hand then out l sllpt
Into a land all sun and blossom, trees
As high as heaven, and every bird that sings
And here the night-light Pickering in my eyes
Awoke me-


That was then your dream she said
Not sad, but sweet


so sweet, lay said he,
And unused upon it, drifting up the stream
In fancy, till l slept again, and pieced
The broken vision for dreamd that still
The motion of the great deep bore me on.
And that the woman walk d upon the brink
I wouder'd at her strength, and askd her of it
at came" she said, ''by working in the mines ::
0 then TO ask her Of my shares, l thought
And ask'd: but not word; she shook her head.
And then the motion of the current ceasd,
And there was rolling thunder ; and we reach
mountain like wall of burs and thorns
But she with her strong feet up the steep hill
Trod out path | followed and at top
She pointed seaward there fleet OF glass;
That seem'd a feet Of jewels under me,
Sailing along before gloomy cloud
That not one moment ceased 10 thunder, past
In sunshine right across its track there lay,
Down in the water long reef Of gold,
Or what seemed gold and was glad at first
To think that in our often-ransack'd d world
Still so much gold was left and when l feared
Lest that gay navy there should splinter on it,
And fearing waved my arm to warn them of
An idle signal, for the brittle feet
0 thought / could have died to save IT'D neard,
Touch'd, clink'd, and clssh'd, and vanish'd and


woke,


heard the clash so clearly. Now l see
Nv dream was life the Woman honest work