Love Letters of a Violinist. Letter X. A Retrospect.
By Eric Mackay
Letter X. A Retrospect.
I.
I walk again beside the roaring sea,
And once again I harken to the speech
Of waves exulting on the madden'd beach.
A sound of awful joy it seems to me,
A shuddering sound of God's eternity, -
Telling of things beyond the sage's reach.
II.
I walk alone. I see the bounding waves
Curl'd into foam. I watch them as they leap
Like wild sea-horses loosen'd from the deep.
And well I know that they have seen the graves
Of shipwreck'd sailors; for Disaster paves
The fearful fields where reapers cannot reap.
III.
Out there, in islands where the summer sun
Goes down in tempest, there are loathsome things
That crawl to shore, and flap unsightly wings.
But here there are no monsters that can run
To catch the limbs of bathers; no! not one;
And here the wind is harmless when it stings.
IV.
There is a glamour all about the bay,
As if the nymphs of Greece had tarried here.
The sands are golden, and the rocks appear
Crested with silver; and the breezes play
Snatches of song they humm'd when far away,
And then are hush'd, as if from sudden fear.
V.
They think of thee. They hunt; they meditate.
They will not quit the shore till they have seen
The very spot where thou did'st stand serene
In all thy beauty; and of me they prate,
Knowing I love thee. And, like one elate,
The grand old sea remembers what hath been.
VI.
How many hours, how many days we met
Here on the beach, in that delirious time
When all the waves appear'd to break in rhyme.
Life was a joy, and love was like a debt
Paid and repaid in kisses - good to get,
And good to lose - unhoarded, yet sublime.
VII.
We wander'd here. We saw the tide advance,
We saw it ebb. We saw the widow'd shore
Waiting for Ocean with its organ roar,
Knowing that, day by day, through happy chance,
She would be wooed anew, amid the dance
Of bridal waves high-bounding as before.
VIII.
And I remember how, at flush of morn,
Thou didst depart alone, to find a nook
Where none could see thee; where a lover's look
Were profanation worse than any scorn;
And how I went my way, among the corn,
To wait for thee beside the Shepherd's brook.
IX.
And lo! from out a cave thou didst emerge,
Sweet as thyself, the flower of Womankind.
I know 'twas thus; for, in my secret mind,
I see thee now. I see thee in the surge
Of those wild waves, well knowing that they urge
Some idle wish, untalk'd-of to the wind.
X.
I think the beach was thankful to have known
Thy warm, white body, and the blessedness
Of thy first shiver; and I well can guess
How, when thy limbs were toss'd and overthrown,
The sea was pleased, and every smallest stone,
And every wave, was proud of thy caress.
XI.
A maiden diving, with dishevell'd hair,
Sheer from a rock; a syren of the deep
Call'd into action, ere a wave could leap
Breast-high to daunt her; Daphne, by a prayer,
Lured from a forest for the sea to bear -
This were a dream to fill a poet's sleep.
XII.
This were a thing for Phoebus to have eyed;
And he did eye it. Yea, the Deathless One
Did eye thy beauty. It was madly done.
He saw thee in the rising of the tide.
He saw thee well. The truth is not denied;
The shore was proud to show thee to the sun.
XIII.
Never since Venus, at a god's decree,
Uprose from ocean, has there lived on earth
A face like thine, a form of so much worth;
And nowhere has the moon-obeying sea
Known such perfection, down from head to knee,
And knee to foot, since that Olympian birth.
XIV.
And, sooth, the moon was anxious to have placed
Her head beside thee, on the waters bright.
But she was foil'd; for thou so late at night
Wouldst not go forth: no! not to be embraced
By Nature's Queen, though, round about the waist,
She would have ring'd thee with her softest light.
XV.
Ah me! had I a lute of sovereign power
I would enlarge on this, and plainly show
That there is nothing like thee here below, -
Nothing so comely, nothing in its dower
Of youth and grace, so like a human flower,
And white withal, and guiltless as the snow.
XVI.
For thou art fair as lilies, with the flush
That roses have while waiting for a kiss;
And when thou smilest nothing comes amiss.
The earth is glad to see thy dimpled blush.
Had I the lute of Orpheus I would hush
All meaner sounds to tell the stars of this.
XVII.
I would, I swear, by Pallas' own consent,
Inform all creatures whom the stars behold
That thou art mine, and that a pen of gold,
With ink of fire, though by an angel lent,
Were all too poor to tell my true content,
And how I love thee seven times seventy fold.
XVIII.
And sure am I that, in the ancient days,
Achilles heard no voice so passing sweet,
And none so trancing, none that could compete
With thine for fervour; none, in watery ways
Where Neptune dwelt, so worthy of the praise
Of Thetis' son, the sure and swift of feet.
XIX.
He never met upon the plains of Troy
Goddess or maiden so divinely fraught.
Not Helen's self, for whom the Trojans fought,
Was like to thee. Her love had much alloy,
But thine has none. Her beauty was a toy,
But thine's a gem, unsullied and unbought.
XX.
And ne'er was seen by poet, in a sweven,
An eye like thine, a face so fair to see
As that which makes the sunlight sweet to me.
Nor need I wait for death, or for the levin
In yonder cloud, to find the path to Heaven.
It fronts me here. 'Tis manifest in thee!