A Midsummer Holiday:- V. A Sea-Mark

Rains have left the sea-banks ill to climb:     Waveward sinks the loosening seaboards floor:     Half the sliding cliffs are mire and slime.     Earth, a fruit rain-rotted to the core,     Drops dissolving down in flakes, that pour     Dense as gouts from eaves grown foul with grime.     One sole rock which years that scathe not score     Stands a sea-mark in the tides of time.     Time were even as even the rainiest clime,     Life were even as even this lapsing shore,     Might not aught outlive their trustless prime:     Vainly fear would wail or hope implore,     Vainly grief revile or love adore     Seasons clothed in sunshine, rain, or rime     Now for me one comfort held in store     Stands a sea-mark in the tides of time.     Once, by fates default or chances crime,     Each apart, our burdens each we bore;     Heard, in monotones like bells that chime,     Chime the sounds of sorrows, float and soar     Joys full carols, near or far before;     Heard not yet across the alternate rhyme     Times tongue tell what sign set fast of yore     Stands a sea-mark in the tides of time.     Friend, the sign we knew not heretofore     Towers in sight here present and sublime.     Faith in faith established evermore     Stands a sea-mark in the tides of time.