We blot a page, and cross ourselves, The cross is red, blood red; Eternal change in girded loins, And progress, hide the dead. The hour glass turns, the mill-wheels hum, O’er arching field and hill, In rainbow tints a finger writes: “Peace, Peace on Earth, Good Will.” I glimpse the narrow winding streets, Where linden trees bend o’er, And homes with windows quaintly draped, With hollyhocks by the door. How were my picture made complete, No kindly faces here? But do I need the master-touch, So radiant they appear. How filled with joy, forever young, The wanton breezes play; How magical the distant blue, How lily-white the way Of phantom sails, all shimmering, With lights where shallops roam, When Aphrodite from the mist Salutes the sea-born foam. Dim as a half forgotten dream The pageant moves along, The Land of Promise beckoning; I hear a spinning-song, From lighthouse, school and steeple-bell, O’er country-side and glen, Love’s madrigals go ringing out In praise of honest men. But I would paint the twisted pines On that old sturdy strand, And I would have you see me kneel And kiss the holy sand. And then, my brush all palpitant With light of virgin skies, I’d consecrate my little sketch And name it “Paradise.” THE DREAM THAT’S IN THE SEA. You ask me why I love the sea? How can I tell? I only know, the miracle, flowing, flowing, ever flowing, And the white foam blowing, The bubbling undertones, The madness when the old gods rave, The eddies, far and wide, that swing the door to memories, When I am sad, make me glad, With a tremulous joy, As if I were a boy. How can I tell the legend of its spell, When skies are blue, And earth rings true? Or, underneath the mystic moon, When I, the happiest of men, Behold a love so great as that of life? ’Tis written in my soul, Yet O, so far beyond the utterance of human tongue! But sometimes, in the night, Like a flash of light, When I hear it breaking on the rocks, Then speed away, It seems to say, “Defeat is not!” Perhaps that’s why I love the sea. THE OLD SKIPPER. I laud no fabled glory Of potentate or kings, No beatific story Of Love’s meanderings. My pennon not for conquest That gloats above the slain, But let me hoist the halyards Above the wind and rain For him, the sun-burned sailor-- The skipper, with an eye Long searching to the windward-- If be it wet or dry, The hurricane, hell-haunted, And sundogs in the sky, The jib and topmast splintered, The breakers mountain high. God help him keep the channel, If nor-nor-east or snow, Or be the night red-footed, And “kiss the bride,” or no. God bless the weathered sailor-- The “outside” fisherman-- Who swears a little when he must, And whistles when he can. ROMP OF THE SEA. (Off the coast of Boulogne at midnight, awaiting the Spaandam.)