The fierce sea-sunset over the world Springs like a wounded spirit, The waves all day have hissed and hurled Their fangs and the spray has swept and swirled, And ships in the gray gale's lair have furled Their sails--well may they fear it! The night will be but a monstrous seethe Of terrors elemental. The clouds will wrap in a ghastly wreath Of gloom the winds that in them breathe, And all that lives in the sea beneath By fear shall be made gentle; And sink down, down to the nether deeps, Below the foam and fretting. Down where the sullen water sleeps Alway and the slow sand coldly creeps Over the lone wreck, which Death keeps To guard him 'gainst forgetting. And there in the ominous vast calm They'll harbour, like enchanted Chill shapes he has strangely conjured from The silence of his masterdom; There float till again they feel the qualm Of hunger thro them panted. And then once more far up will they spring, To drift and sport and plunder, Shark, eel and whale and devil-thing, With tooth to rend and tail to sting. To the sea, O God, does horror cling And haunting past all wonder. SUNRISE IN UTAH The dun sand-cliffs that break the desert's sea Rose suddenly upon my sight at dawn, And terrible in an eternity Of death took silently the sunrise on. Purple funereal from rifted skies Swept down across their proud sterility, Only to die as here all glory dies, On barrenness I did not dream could be. O God, for a bird-song! or opening lips Of but one flower upon the fatal air, For but the voice of water as it drips, Or stir of leaves the day-wind makes aware! O God, for these, for life! or from the face Of the world wipe so irreparable a place! CONSOLATION I Come to me, shadows, down the hill, Lie softly at my feet. The sun has worked his will And the day is done. Come to me softly and distil Your dews and dreams, that heat And hours of heartless glare have overrun. II Come to me, shadows, down the hill And bring with you the night, Fire-flies and the whippoorwill And ah, the moon-- Whose soft interpretings can still The tangled tongues of right And wrong, and hope and fear, that haunt the noon. III Come to me, shadows, down the hill-- And let there follow Sleep, Which is God's tidal Will That overflows The world--obliterating ill, And in its soothing sweep Murmuring more of mercy than man knows. WAVES The evening sails come home With twilight in their wings. The harbour-light across the gloam Springs; The wind sings. The waves begin to tell The sea's night-sorrow o'er, Weaving within their ancient spell More Than earth's lore. The rising moon wafts strange Low lures across the tide, On which my dim thoughts seem to range, Stride Upon stride, Until, with flooding thrill, They seem at last to blend With waves that from the Eternal Will Wend, Without end. VIS ULTIMA