Come press your coral lip against my ear Frail vagrant of the sea, And sing to me the songs I love to hear From ocean’s symphony. Of tides that set in far off palmy isles Where ukuleles strum, And star eyed maidens wreathed in flowers and smiles Dance to your rhythmic hum. No plaintive bird, full throated with the spring, Warbles a sweeter note Than those enchanting melodies that ring Within your pearly throat. Sonorous chords that sound a minor key, Sea chanties hoarse and low, The echoes of the mermaid’s minstrelsy, And songs the sirens know. But now a bit of flotsam on the beach Imprisoned in my hand, I listen to the mysteries you teach And strive to understand. Your music leaves me in a brooding vein Sweet chantress of the deep, For in those elfin strains you wake again From death’s engulfing sleep And when, like you, upon life’s farthest shore Time bears my empty shell, O may such songs as your immortal store Be mine as well! WINDS OF THE CAPE Winds of the Cape, go tearing by Down the wild canyons of the sky! When winter’s cold has stripped the trees, And fields are bare and waters freeze, We hear them in the dead of night Careering on their headlong flight - The formless horsemen of the blast In gales of darkness rushing past! Winds of the Cape in gladness ring With all the lilting songs of spring! When fresh and clean the world awakes, And petals fall in snowy flakes From beach plum bush and apple tree There comes the haunting melody From sky land’s caravans once more - Wild geese in flight for Labrador! Winds of the Cape in Summer days When shore and dune dissolve in haze, Come drifting down the heavenly leas From cloudland’s floating Hebrides, Caressing with your langorous calm, And coolness like a healing balm; And whispering tales of Araby Palm fringing some enchanted sea. Winds of the Cape, what sadness blends In those wild gusts that Autumn sends Down empty hallways of the sky, To echo ever mournfully The footsteps of the dying year; To grieve o’er woods and meadows sere For things we loved so much - but lost Like blossoms withered by the frost. THE ENCHANTED MARSH O ripples in the marshland grass Like waves on an enchanted sea, The winds, with trailing garments pass Invisible adown the lea Each footprint, evanescent, pressed In shadowed highlight, trough and crest. No spray upon those waves is seen To splash upon the marshy bank; Uncanny sea so strangely green! While lurking in those coverts dank What things of the abyss may dwell Only the fear hushed winds might tell.