[Pg 141]

ON THE SOUTH COAST

 To Theodore Watts

To Theodore Watts

Hills and valleys where April rallies his radiant squadron of flowers and birds,

Steep strange beaches and lustrous reaches of fluctuant sea that the land engirds,

Fields and downs that the sunrise crowns with life diviner than lives in words,

Day by day of resurgent May salute the sun with sublime acclaim,

Change and brighten with hours that lighten and darken, girdled with cloud or flame;

Earth's fair face in alternate grace beams, blooms, and lowers, and is yet the same.

Twice each day the divine sea's play makes glad with glory that comes and goes

Field and street that her waves keep sweet, when past the bounds of their old repose,

Fast and fierce in renewed reverse, the foam-flecked estuary ebbs and flows.

[Pg 142]

Broad and bold through the stays of old staked fast with trunks of the wildwood tree,

Up from shoreward, impelled far forward, by marsh and meadow, by lawn and lea,

Inland still at her own wild will swells, rolls, and revels the surging sea.

Strong as time, and as faith sublime,—clothed round with shadows of hopes and fears,

Nights and morrows, and joys and sorrows, alive with passion of prayers and tears,—

Stands the shrine that has seen decline eight hundred waxing and waning years.

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