h and nigher.
She does not know what a brief time
Ago it was my arms held--crime.

The surf is beating on the shore.
We hear our own heart-beatings more.
She speaks of _him_ and my reply
Is silence: does she wonder why?

"I do not love him: have no fear,"
Her whisper is, against my ear.
At last, "I have no fear," say I.
She starts, as at a wild-beast's cry.

And then she sees red on my coat.
A still-born cry throbs in her throat.
The fog sweeps by the window pane.
Her sight is fixed on one dull stain.

I rise and light my pipe and go,
Leaving her standing, staring so.
The wind means storm, I think, to-night:
But more than that will make her white.

And yet had it been yesterday
She said those words, I still could pray.
There would be still a God above--
For two, now overwhelmed, to love!

TO A SOLITARY SEA-GULL

Lone white gull with sickle wings,
You reap for the heart inscrutable things:
Sorrow of mists and surf of the shore,
Winds that sigh of the nevermore;
Fret of foam and flurry of rain,
Swept far over the troubled tide;
Maths of mystery and grey pain
The sea's voice ever yields, beside.
Lone white gull, you reap for the heart
Life's most sad and inscrutable part.

INEFFABLE THINGS

The little song-sparrow is gone
And the summer is nearly ended,
The rill of his song was a happy rift
In the surging sound of the sea.
The swallow is lingering on,
And the silvery swift sandpiper,
And I--tho I know my saddened heart
Has lost an ineffable thing,
That summer no more can bring.

With the first bay-leaves that flung
Their scent to me by the billows,
I twined some faith, some trust,
As glad as the sparrow's song.
And the terns that darted among
The tides seemed weaving for me
Impalpable wings of peace and hope--
That now have taken flight
Beyond the day and the night.

Ah, Life, you have known my plea
For sun and the tide of fortune,
For winds to waken my sail and bear
Me joyously over the world.
Know too how much of your fog
And storm and rain I will suffer,
If only you do not sweep from me
The dear ineffable things,
To which your fragrance clings.

THE SONG OF A SEA-FARER

Many are on the sea to-day
With al