Bryan Waller Procter
("BARRY CORNWALL")
THE sea! the sea! the open sea! The blue, the fresh, the ever free! Without a mark, without a bound,
It runneth the earth's wide regions round; It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies; Or like a cradled creature lies.
I'm on the sea! I'm on the sea! I am where I would ever be ; With the blue above, and the blue below, And silence wheresoe'er I go;
If a storm should come and awake the deep, What matter? I shall ride and sleep.
I love, O, how I love to ride On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide, When every mad wave drowns the moon Or whistles aloft his tempest tune, And tells how goeth the world below, And why the sou'west blasts do blow.
I never was on the dull, tame shore, But I lov'd the great sea more and more, And backwards flew to her billowy breast, Like a bird that seeketh its mother's nest ; And a mother she was, and is, to me; For I was born on the open sea !
The waves were white, and red the morn, In the noisy hour when I was born; And the whale it whistled, the porpoise roll'd,
And the dolphins bared their backs of gold; And never was heard such an outcry wild As welcom❜d to life the ocean-child!
RACHEL, the beautiful (as she was call'd), Despis'd our mother Leah, for that she Was tender-ey'd, lean-favor'd, and did lack The pulpy ripeness swelling the white skin To sleek proportions beautiful and round, With wrinkled joints so fruitful to the eye. All this is fair and yet we know it true That 'neath a pomane breast and snowy side A heart of guile and falsehood may be hid, As well as where the soil is deeper tinct. So here with this same Rachel was it found: The dim blue-laced veins on either brow, Neath the transparent skin meandering, That with the silver-leaved lily vied; Her full dark eye, whose brightness glis- ten'd through
The sable lashes soft as camel-hair; Her slanting head curv'd like the maiden
And hung with hair luxuriant as a vine And blacker than a storm; her rounded ear Turn'd like a shell upon some golden shore; Her whispering foot that carried all her weight,
Nor left its little pressure on the sand; Her lips as drowsy poppies, soft and red, Gathering a dew from her escaping breath; Her voice melodious, mellow, deep, and clear,
Lingering like sweet music in the ear; Her neck o'ersoften'd like to unsunn'd curd; Her tapering fingers rounded to a point; The silken softness of her veined hand; Her dimpled knuckles answering to her chin;
And teeth like honeycombs o' the wilder
All these did tend to a bad proof in her. For armed thus in beauty she did steal The eye of Jacob to her proper self, Engross'd his time, and kept him by her side,
Casting on Leah indifference and neglect ; Whereat great Heaven took our mother's
And struck young Rachel with a barrenness, While she bore children: thus the matter
Till Rachel, feeling guilty of her fault, Turn'd to some penitence, which Heaven heard;
And then she bore this Joseph, who must, and does,
Contemptible darkness never yet did dull The splendor of love's palpitating light. At love's slight curtains, that are made of sighs,
Though e'er so dark, silence is seen to stand Like to a flower closed in the night; Or, like a lovely image drooping down With its fair head aslant and finger rais'd, And mutely on its shoulder slumbering. Pulses do sound quick music in Love's ear, And blended fragrance in his startled breath Doth hang the hair with drops of magic dew. All outward thoughts, all common circum- stance,
Are buried in the dimple of his smile : And the great city like a vision sails From out the closing doors of the hush'd mind.
His heart strikes audibly against his ribs As a dove's wing doth freak upon a cage, Forcing the blood athro' the cramped veins Faster than dolphins do o'ershoot the tide Cours'd by the yawning shark. Therefore I say
Night-blooming Cereus, and the star-flower sweet,
The honeysuckle, and the eglantine, And the ring'd vinous tree that yields red wine,
Together with all intertwining flowers, Are plants most fit to ramble o'er each other,
And form the bower of all-precious Love, Shrouding the sun with fragrant bloom and leaves
From jealous interception of Love's gaze. This is Love's cabin in the light of day, But oh! compare it not with the black
Joseph. Still I am patient, tho' you're merciless.
Yet to speak out my mind, I do avouch There is no city feast, nor city show, The encampment of the king and soldiery. Rejoicings, revelries, and victories, Can equal the remembrance of my home In visible imagination.
Even as he was I see my father now, His grave and graceful head's benignity Musing beyond the confines of this world, His world within with all its mysteries. What pompless majesty was in his mien, An image of integrity creates,
Pattern of nature, in perfection. Lo! in the morning when we issued forth, The patriarch surrounded by his sons, Girt round with looks of sweet obedience, Each struggling who should honor him the most;
While from the wrinkles deep of many
And pressed curds, and choicest rarities, Stores of the cheerless season of the year; While at our sides the women of our tribe, With pitchers on their heads, fill'd to the brim
With wine, and honey, and with smoking milk,
Made proud the black-ey'd heifers with the swell
Of the sweet anthem sung in plenty's praise. Thus would we journey to the wilderness, And fixing on some peak that did o'erlook The spacious plains that lay display'd beneath,
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