STRANDED. O busy ships! that smile in sailing In a glory Like a dream, From the colors of the harbor to the colors of the sea. In singing words or in bewailing, Tell the story As you gleam, Tell the story, guess the language of my idle hours for me. O busy waves! so blest in bruising Your white faces On the shore. So happy to be wasted with the purpose of the sea, Content to leave with it the choosing Of your places Evermore, Whisper but the far sea-meaning of my stranded life for me. Gray the sails grow in departing Like fleet swallows To the South. Stern the tide turns in its parting, As it follows With dumb mouth. In the stillness and the sternness God makes answer unto me. GLOUCESTER HARBOR. One shadow glides from the dumb shore, And one from every silent sail. One cloud the averted heavens wear, A soft mask, thin and frail. Oh, silver is the lessening rain, And yellow was the weary drouth. The reef her warning finger puts Upon the harbor's mouth. Her thin, wan finger, stiff and stark, She holds by night, she holds by day. Ask, if you will. No answer makes The sombre, guarded bay. The fleet, with idle canvas hung, Like a brute life, sleeps patiently. The headlights nod across the cliff, The fog blows out to sea. There is no color on the tide, No color on the helpless sky; Across the beach,--a safe, small sound-- The grass-hid crickets cry. And through the dusk I hear the keels Of home-bound boats grate low and sweet. O happy lights! O watching eyes! Leap out the sound to greet. O tender arms that meet and clasp! Gather and cherish while ye may. The morrow knoweth God. Ye know Your own are yours to-day. Forever from the Gloucester winds The cries of hungry children start. There breaks in every Gloucester wave A widowed woman's heart. THE TERRIBLE TEST. Separate, upon the folded page Of myth or marvel, sad or glad, The test that gave the Lord to thee, And thee to us, O Galahad! "Found pure in deed, and word, and thought," The creature of our dream and guess, The vision of the brain thou art, The eidolon of holiness. Man with the power of the God, Man with the weaknesses of men, Whose lips the Sangreal leaned to feed, "Whose strength was the strength of ten," We read--and smile; no man thou wast; No human pulses thine could be; With downcast eyes we read--and sigh; So terrible is purity! ---------- O fairest legend of the years, With folded wings, go, silently! O flower of knighthood, yield your place To One who comes from Galilee! To wounded feet that shrink and bleed, But press and climb the narrow way,-- The same old way our own must step, Forever, yesterday, to-day.