Off Shore

When the might of the summer     Is most on the sea;     When the days overcome her     With joy but to be,     With rapture of royal enchantment, and sorcery that sets her not free,     But for hours upon hours     As a thrall she remains     Spell-bound as with flowers     And content in their chains,     And her loud steeds fret not, and lift not a lock of their deep white manes;     Then only, far under     In the depths of her hold,     Some gleam of its wonder     Man's eye may behold,     Its wild-weed forests of crimson and russet and olive and gold.     Still deeper and dimmer     And goodlier they glow     For the eyes of the swimmer     Who scans them below     As he crosses the zone of their flowerage that knows not of sunshine and snow.     Soft blossomless frondage     And foliage that gleams     As to prisoners in bondage     The light of their dreams,     The desire of a dawn unbeholden, with hope on the wings of its beams.     Not as prisoners entombed     Waxen haggard and wizen,     But consoled and illumed     In the depths of their prison     With delight of the light everlasting and vision of dawn on them risen,     From the banks and the beds     Of the waters divine     They lift up their heads     And the flowers of them shine     Through the splendour of darkness that clothes them of water that glimmers like wine.     Bright bank over bank     Making glorious the gloom,     Soft rank upon rank,     Strange bloom after bloom,     They kindle the liquid low twilight, the dusk of the dim sea's womb.     Through the subtle and tangible     Gloom without form,     Their branches, infrangible     Ever of storm     Spread softer their sprays than the shoots of the woodland when April is warm.     As the flight of the thunder, full     Charged with its word,     Dividing the wonderful     Depths like a bird,     Speaks wrath and delight to the heart of the night that exults to have heard,     So swiftly, though soundless     In silence's ear,     Light, winged from the boundless     Blue depths full of cheer,     Speaks joy to the heart of the waters that part not before him, but hear.     Light, perfect and visible     Godhead of God,     God indivisible,     Lifts but his rod,     And the shadows are scattered in sunder, and darkness is light at his nod.     At the touch of his wand,     At the nod of his head     From the spaces beyond     Where the dawn hath her bed,     Earth, water, and air are transfigured, and rise as one risen from the dead.     He puts forth his hand,     And the mountains are thrilled     To the heart as they stand     In his presence, fulfilled     With his glory that utters his grace upon earth, and her sorrows are stilled.     The moan of her travail     That groans for the light     Till dayspring unravel     The weft of the night,     At the sound of the strings of the music of morning, falls dumb with delight.     He gives forth his word,     And the word that he saith,     Ere well it be heard,     Strikes darkness to death;     For the thought of his heart is the sunrise, and dawn as the sound of his breath.     And the strength of its pulses     That passion makes proud     Confounds and convulses     The depths of the cloud     Of the darkness that heaven was engirt with, divided and rent as a shroud,     As the veil of the shrine     Of the temple of old     When darkness divine     Over noonday was rolled;     So the heart of the night by the pulse of the light is convulsed and controlled.     And the sea's heart, groaning     For glories withdrawn,     And the waves' mouths, moaning     All night for the dawn,     Are uplift as the hearts and the mouths of the singers on leaside and lawn.     And the sound of the quiring     Of all these as one,     Desired and desiring     Till dawn's will be done,     Fills full with delight of them heaven till it burns as the heart of the sun.     Till the waves too inherit     And waters take part     In the sense of the spirit     That breathes from his heart,     And are kindled with music as fire when the lips of the morning part,     With music unheard     In the light of her lips,     In the life-giving word     Of the dewfall that drips     On the grasses of earth, and the wind that enkindles the wings of the ships.     White glories of wings     As of seafaring birds     That flock from the springs     Of the sunrise in herds     With the wind for a herdsman, and hasten or halt at the change of his words.     As the watchword's change     When the wind's note shifts,     And the skies grow strange,     And the white squall drifts     Up sharp from the sea-line, vexing the sea till the low cloud lifts.     At the charge of his word     Bidding pause, bidding haste,     When the ranks are stirred     And the lines displaced,     They scatter as wild swans parting adrift on the wan green waste.     At the hush of his word     In a pause of his breath     When the waters have heard     His will that he saith,     They stand as a flock penned close in its fold for division of death.     As a flock by division     Of death to be thinned,     As the shades in a vision     Of spirits that sinned;     So glimmer their shrouds and their sheetings as clouds on the stream of the wind.     But the sun stands fast,     And the sea burns bright,     And the flight of them past     Is no more than the flight     Of the snow-soft swarm of serene wings poised and afloat in the light.     Like flowers upon flowers     In a festival way     When hours after hours     Shed grace on the day,     White blossomlike butterflies hover and gleam through the snows of the spray.     Like snow-coloured petals     Of blossoms that flee     From storm that unsettles     The flower as the tree     They flutter, a legion of flowers on the wing, through the field of the sea.     Through the furrowless field     Where the foam-blossoms blow     And the secrets are sealed     Of their harvest below     They float in the path of the sunbeams, as flakes or as blossoms of snow.     Till the sea's ways darken,     And the God, withdrawn,     Give ear not or hearken     If prayer on him fawn,     And the sun's self seem but a shadow, the noon as a ghost of the dawn.     No shadow, but rather     God, father of song,     Shew grace to me, Father     God, loved of me long,     That I lose not the light of thy face, that my trust in thee work me not wrong.     While yet I make forward     With face toward thee     Not turned yet in shoreward,     Be thine upon me;     Be thy light on my forehead or ever I turn it again from the sea.     As a kiss on my brow     Be the light of thy grace,     Be thy glance on me now     From the pride of thy place:     As the sign of a sire to a son be the light on my face of thy face.     Thou wast father of olden     Times hailed and adored,     And the sense of thy golden     Great harp's monochord     Was the joy in the soul of the singers that hailed thee for master and lord.     Fair father of all     In thy ways that have trod,     That have risen at thy call,     That have thrilled at thy nod,     Arise, shine, lighten upon me, O sun that we see to be God.     As my soul has been dutiful     Only to thee,     O God most beautiful,     Lighten thou me,     As I swim through the dim long rollers, with eyelids uplift from the sea.     Be praised and adored of us     All in accord,     Father and lord of us     Alway adored,     The slayer and the stayer and the harper, the light of us all and our lord.     At the sound of thy lyre,     At the touch of thy rod,     Air quickens to fire     By the foot of thee trod,     The saviour and healer and singer, the living and visible God.     The years are before thee     As shadows of thee,     As men that adore thee,     As cloudlets that flee:     But thou art the God, and thy kingdom is heaven, and thy shrine is the sea.