White fire upon the gray-green waste of waves, The low light of the breaker flares. Ah, see! Outbursting on a sky of steel and ice, The baffled sun stabs wildly at the gale. The water rises like a god aglow, Who all too long hath slept, and dreamed too sure, And finds his goddess fled his empty arms. Silent, the mighty cliff receives at last That rage of elemental tenderness, The old, omnipotent caress she knows. Yet once the solid earth did melt for her And, pitying, made retreat before her flight; Would she have hidden her forever there? Or did she, wavering, linger long enough To let the accustomed torrent chase her down? Over the neck of the gorge, I cling. Lean desperately! He who feared a chasm's edge Were never the one to see The torment and the triumph hid Where the deep surges be. I pierce the gulf; I sweep the coast Where wide the tide swings free; I search as never soul sought before. There is not patience enough in all the shore, There is not passion enough in all the sea, To tell my love for thee. 

 

 

 GALATEA. 

 A moment's grace, Pygmalion! Let me be A breath's space longer on this hither hand Of fate too sweet, too sad, too mad to meet. Whether to be thy statue or thy bride— An instant spare me! Terrible the choice, As no man knoweth, being only man; Nor any, saving her who hath been stone And loved her sculptor. Shall I dare exchange Veins of the quarry for the throbbing pulse? Insensate calm for a sure-aching heart? Repose eternal for a woman's lot? Forego God's quiet for the love of man? To float on his uncertain tenderness, A wave tossed up the shore of his desire, To ebb and flow whene'er it pleaseth him; Remembered at his leisure, and forgot, Worshiped and worried, clasped and dropped at mood, Or soothed or gashed at mercy of his will, Now Paradise my portion, and now Hell; And every single, several nerve that beats In soul or body, like some rare vase, thrust In fire at first, and then in frost, until The fine, protesting fibre snaps? 

 Oh, who Foreknowing, ever chose a fate like this? What woman out of all the breathing world Would be a woman, could her heart select, Or love her lover, could her life prevent? Then let me be that only, only one; Thus let me make that sacrifice supreme, No other ever made, or can, or shall. Behold, the future shall stand still to ask, What man was worth a price so isolate? And rate thee at its value for all time. 

Oh, who

 For I am driven by an awful Law. See! 

 Prev. P 28/63 next