Oh, fisher-fleet, go in from the sea

      And furl your wings.

      The bay is gray with the twilit spray

      And the loud surf springs.

      The chill buoy-bell is rung by the hands

      Of all the drowned,

      Who know the woe of the wind and tow

      Of the tides around.

      Go in, go in! Oh, haste from the sea,

      And let them rest —

      A son and one who was wed and one

      Who went down unblest.

      Aye, even as I, whose hands at the bell

      Now labour most.

      The tomb has gloom, but Oh, the doom

      Of the drear sea-ghost!

      He evermore must wander the ooze

      Beneath the wave,

      Forlorn – to warn of the tempest born,

      And to save – to save!

      Then go, go in! and leave us the sea,

      For only so

      Can peace release us and give us ease

      Of our salty woe.

      I met a child upon the moor

      A-wading down the heather;

      She put her hand into my own,

      We crossed the fields together.

      I led her to her father's door —

      A cottage mid the clover.

      I left her – and the world grew poor

      To me, a childless rover.

      I met a maid upon the moor,

      The morrow was her wedding.

      Love lit her eyes with lovelier hues

      Than the eve-star was shedding.

      She looked a sweet good-bye to me,

      And o'er the stile went singing.

      Down all the lonely night I heard

      But bridal bells a-ringing.

      I met a mother on the moor,

      By a new grave a-praying.

      The happy swallows in the blue

      Upon the winds were playing.

      "Would I were in his grave," I said,

      "And he beside her standing!"

      There was no heart to break if death

      For me had made demanding.

      Down the palm-way from Eden in the mid-night

      Lay dreaming Eve by her outdriven mate,

      Pillowed on lilies that still told the sweet

      Of birth within the Garden's ecstasy.

      Pitiful round her face that could not lose

      Its memory of God's perfecting was strewn

      Her troubled hair, and sigh grieved after sigh

      Along her loveliness in the white moon.

      Then sudden her dream, too cruelly impent

      With pain, broke and a cry fled shuddering

      Into the wounded stillness from her lips —

      As, cold, she fearfully felt for his hand,

      And tears, that had before ne'er visited

      Her lids with anguish, drew from her the moan:

      "Oh, Adam! What have I dreamed?

      Now do I understand His words, so dim

      To creatures that had quivered but with bliss!

      Since at the dusk thy kiss to me, and I

      Wept at caresses that were once all joy,

      I have slept, seeing through Futurity

      The uncreated ages visibly!

      Foresuffering phantoms crowded in the womb

      Of Time, and all with lamentable mien

      Accusing without mercy, thee and me!

      And without pity! for tho' some were far

      From birth, and without name, others were near —

      Sodom and dark Gomorrah – from whose flames

      Fleeing one turned … how like her look to mine

      When the tree's horror trembled on my taste!

      And Babylon upbuilded on our sin;

      And Nineveh, a city sinking slow

      Under a shroud of sandy centuries

      That hid me not from the buried cursing eyes

      Of women who e'er-bitterly gave birth!

      Ah, to be mother of all misery!

      To be first-called out of the earth and fail

      For a whole world! To shame maternity

      For women evermore – women whose tears

      Flooding the night, no hope can wipe away!

      To see the wings of Death, as, Adam, thou

      Hast not, endlessly beating, and to hear

      The swooning ages suffer up to God!

      And Oh, that birth-cry of a guiltless child

      In it are sounding of our sin and woe,