Part 19 (1/2)

IV

It came with the threat of a waning moon And the wail of an ebbing tide, But many a woman has lived for less, And many a man has died; For life upon life took hold and pa.s.sed, Strong in a fate set free, Out of the deep into the dark On for the years to be.

Between the gloom of a waning moon And the song of an ebbing tide, Chance upon chance of love and death Took wing for the world so wide.

O, leaf out of leaf is the way of the land, Wave out of wave of the sea And who shall reckon what lives may live In the life that we bade to be?

V

Why, my heart, do we love her so?

(Geraldine, Geraldine!) Why does the great sea ebb and flow? - Why does the round world spin?

Geraldine, Geraldine, Bid me my life renew: What is it worth unless I win, Love--love and you?

Why, my heart, when we speak her name (Geraldine, Geraldine!) Throbs the word like a flinging flame? - Why does the Spring begin?

Geraldine, Geraldine, Bid me indeed to be: Open your heart, and take us in, Love--love and me.

VI

One with the ruined sunset, The strange forsaken sands, What is it waits, and wanders, And signs with desparate hands?

What is it calls in the twilight - Calls as its chance were vain?

The cry of a gull sent seaward Or the voice of an ancient pain?

The red ghost of the sunset, It walks them as its own, These dreary and desolate reaches . . .

But O, that it walked alone!

VII

There's a regret So grinding, so immitigably sad, Remorse thereby feels tolerant, even glad . . .

Do you not know it yet?

For deeds undone Rankle and snarl and hunger for their due, Till there seems naught so despicable as you In all the grin o' the sun.

Like an old shoe The sea spurns and the land abhors, you lie About the beach of Time, till by and by Death, that derides you too -

Death, as he goes His ragman's round, espies you, where you stray, With half-an-eye, and kicks you out of his way; And then--and then, who knows