Waits for me by the sundering sea;
A prayer for her is on my lip--
And the old life is dead to me.






LISTENING

I have lain beneath the pine trees just to hear the thrush's calling,
I have waited for the throstle where the harvest fields were brown,
I have caught the lark's sweet trilling from the depths of cloud-land
falling
And the piping of the linnet through the willow branches blown.

But you have some singing graces, you who sing because you love it,
That are higher than the throstle, or the linnet, or the lark;
And, however far my soul may reach, your song is far above it;
And I falter while I follow as a child does in the dark.

In elder days, when all the world was silent save the beating
Of the tempest-gathered ocean 'gainst the grey volcanic walls,
When the light had met the darkness and the mountains sent their greeting
To each other in sharp flashes as the vivid lightning falls,

Then the high gods said, "In token that we love the earth we fashioned,
We will set the white stars singing, and teach man the art of song":
And there rose up from the valleys sounds of love and life impassioned,