A SABBATH MORNING AT SEA.
97
VIII.
God's sabbath morning sweeps the waves:
I would not praise the pageant high,
And miss the dedicature:
I, drawn down toward the sunless graves
By force of natural things,—should I
Exult in only nature?
IX.
I could not bear to sit alone
In nature's fixed benignities,
While my warm pulse was moving.
Too dark thou art, O glittering sun,
Too strait ye are, capacious seas,
To satisfy the loving.
X.
It seems a better lot than so,
To sit with friends beneath the beech,
And call them dear and dearer;
Or follow children as they go
In pretty pairs, with softened speech
As the church-bells ring nearer.
XI.
Love me, sweet friends, this sabbath day.
The sea sings round me while ye roll
Afar the hymn unaltered,
And kneel, where once I knelt, to pray,
And bless me deeper in your soul,
Because your voice has faltered.