BY THE NORTH SEA

TO WALTER THEODORE WATTS.

'We are what suns and winds and waters make us.'--LANDOR.


_Sea, wind, and sun, with light and sound and breath
The spirit of man fulfilling--these create
That joy wherewith man's life grown passionate
Gains heart to hear and sense to read and faith
To know the secret word our Mother saith
In silence, and to see, though doubt wax great,
Death as the shadow cast by life on fate,
Passing, whose shade we call the shadow of death.

Brother, to whom our Mother as to me
Is dearer than all dreams of days undone,
This song I give you of the sovereign three
That are as life and sleep and death are, one:
A song the sea-wind gave me from the sea,
Where nought of man's endures before the sun._




BY THE NORTH SEA