Hampton Beach

The sunlight glitters keen and bright,     Where, miles away,     Lies stretching to my dazzled sight     A luminous belt, a misty light,     Beyond the dark pine bluffs and wastes of sandy gray.     The tremulous shadow of the Sea!     Against its ground     Of silvery light, rock, hill, and tree,     Still as a picture, clear and free,     With varying outline mark the coast for miles around.     On, on, we tread with loose-flung rein     Our seaward way,     Through dark-green fields and blossoming grain,     Where the wild brier-rose skirts the lane,     And bends above our heads the flowering locust spray.     Ha! like a kind hand on my brow     Comes this fresh breeze,     Cooling its dull and feverish glow,     While through my being seems to flow     The breath of a new life, the healing of the seas!     Now rest we, where this grassy mound     His feet hath set     In the great waters, which have bound     His granite ankles greenly round     With long and tangled moss, and weeds with cool spray wet.     Good-by to Pain and Care! I take     Mine ease to-day     Here where these sunny waters break,     And ripples this keen breeze, I shake     All burdens from the heart, all weary thoughts away.     I draw a freer breath, I seem     Like all I see     Waves in the sun, the white-winged gleam,     Of sea-birds in the slanting beam,     And far-off sails which flit before the south-wind free.     So when Times veil shall fall asunder,     The soul may know     No fearful change, nor sudden wonder,     Nor sink the weight of mystery under,     But with the upward rise, and with the vastness grow.     And all we shrink from now may seem     No new revealing;     Familiar as our childhoods stream,     Or pleasant memory of a dream     The loved and cherished Past upon the new life stealing.     Serene and mild the untried light     May have its dawning;     And, as in summers northern night     The evening and the dawn unite,     The sunset hues of Time blend with the souls new morning.     I sit alone; in foam and spray     Wave after wave     Breaks on the rocks which, stern and gray,     Shoulder the broken tide away,     Or murmurs hoarse and strong through mossy cleft and cave.     What heed I of the dusty land     And noisy town?     I see the mighty deep expand     From its white line of glimmering sand     To where the blue of heaven on bluer waves shuts down!     In listless quietude of mind,     I yield to all     The change of cloud and wave and wind     And passive on the flood reclined,     I wander with the waves, and with them rise and fall.     But look, thou dreamer! wave and shore     In shadow lie;     The night-wind warns me back once more     To where, my native hill-tops oer,     Bends like an arch of fire the glowing sunset sky.     So then, beach, bluff, and wave, farewell!     I bear with me     No token stone nor glittering shell,     But long and oft shall Memory tell     Of this brief thoughtful hour of musing by the Sea.