Anthology of Massachusetts Poets

<h2><SPAN name="chap54"></SPAN>THE SONG OF THE WAVE</h2> <p class="poem"> This is the song of the wave! The mighty one!<br/> Child of the soul of silence, beating the air to sound:<br/> White as a live terror, as a drawn sword,<br/> This is the wave.<br/></p> <h5>II</h5> <p class="poem"> This is the song of the wave, the white-maned steed of the Tempest<br/> Whose veins are swollen with life,<br/> In whose flanks abide the four winds.<br/> This is the wave.<br/></p> <h5>III</h5> <p class="poem"> This is the song of the wave! The dawn leaped out of the sea<br/> And the waters lay smooth as a silver shield,<br/> And the sun-rays smote on the waters like a golden sword.<br/> Then a wind blew out of the morning<br/> And the waters rustled<br/> And the wave was born!<br/></p> <h5>IV</h5> <p class="poem"> This is the song of the wave! The wind blew out of the noon<br/> And the white sea-birds like driven foam<br/> Winged in from the ocean that lay beyond the sky<br/> And the face of the waters was barred with white,<br/> For the wave had many brothers,<br/> And the wave was strong!<br/></p> <h5>V</h5> <p class="poem"> This is the song of the wave! The wind blew out of the sunset<br/> And the west was lurid as Hell.<br/> The black clouds closed like a tomb, for the sun was dead.<br/> Then the wind smote full as the breath of God,<br/> And the wave called to its brothers,<br/> &ldquo;This is the crest of life!&rdquo;<br/></p> <h5>VI</h5> <p class="poem"> This is the song of the wave, that rises to fall,<br/> Rises a sheer green wall like a barrier of glass<br/> That has caught the soul of the moonlight.<br/> Caught and prisoned the moon-beams;<br/> Its edge is frittered to foam.<br/> This is the wave!<br/></p> <h5>VII</h5> <p class="poem"> This is the song of the wave, of the wave that falls&mdash;<br/> Wild as a burst of day-gold blown through the colours of morning<br/> It shivers to infinite atoms up the rumbling steep of sand.<br/> This is the wave.<br/></p> <h5>VIII</h5> <p class="poem"> This is the song of the wave that died in the fullness of life.<br/> The prodigal this, that lavished its largess of strength<br/> In the lust of attainment.<br/> Aiming at things for Heaven too high,<br/> Sure in the pride of life, in the richness of strength.<br/> So tried it the impossible height, till the end was found:<br/> Where ends the soul that yearns for the fillet of morning stars,<br/> The soul in the toils of the journeying worlds,<br/> Whose eye is filled with the Image of God,<br/> And the end is Death!<br/></p> <p class="left"> GEORGE CABOT LODGE</p> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />