Читать книгу Sea Poems - Rice Cale Young - Страница 4

Little torch-bearer, alone with me in the night,

You cannot light the sea, nor I illumine life.

They are too vast for us, they are too deep for us.

We glow with all our strength, but back the shadows sweep:

And after a while will come – unshadowed Sleep.

Here on the rocks that take the turning tide;

Here by the wide lone waves and lonelier wastes of sky,

We keep our poet-watch, as patient poets should,

Questioning earth's commingled ill and good to us.

Yet little of them, or naught, have truly understood.

Bright are the stars, and constellated thick.

To you, so quick to flit along your flickering course,

They seem perhaps as glowing mates in other fields.

And all the knowledge I have gathered yields to me

Scarce more of the great mystery their wonder wields.

For the moon we are waiting – and behold

Her ardent gold drifts up, her sail has caught the breeze

That blows all being thro the Universe always.

So now, little light-keeper, you no more need nurse

Your gleam, for lo! she mounts, and sullen clouds disperse.

And I with aching thought may cease to burn,

And humbly turn to rest – knowing no glow of mine

Can ever be so beauteous as have been to me

Your soft beams here beside the sea's elusive din:

For grief too oft has kindled me, and pain, and the world's sin.