SUMNER ESTUARY
My dog beside me in his dog-like way
Tastes the divineness of this place and day,
Breathes-in the freshness of the large hill-air,
Basks in the blessed light spread everywhere;
Seems, even, down to gaze,
Far, far down, on the shining waterways,
Wandering ’mid shoals of sand and salty weed,
Of yon wide Estuary....
But eyes can gaze, it takes a mind to see!
How much does my poor Collie sense indeed
Of this vast, exquisite view,
All breadth, all detail too?——
Bright twisting emerald, brilliant blues,
Purple and violet, bronze and fawn,
Blending, make bloom with loveliest hues
All the broad water-lawn:
Clouds bosom it with white:
A myriad curling courses, golden-bright
Or like sharp silver, thread and flourish it
With inlaid light:
And, down its long length sinuously shining,
From right and left, rich roads of sapphire, glide
The sister rivers.... then, together twining,
Gleam past the yellow dunes into yon wide
Glitter of bare blue sea,
Eastward expanding, look! how far and free.
Northward, outside the pattern’d Estuary,
Smooth goes the gold shore curving far away
Round the smooth crescent of the great blue Bay;
And, inland turning, toward the west, behold
The cluster’d city, breathing breaths of gold...
The purple width of plain....the lifted line
Of snows processional, that stride and shine
Continuous on, behind City and Estuary,
And Bay....till lastly, standing as on sea,
Station’d in sky, what massive Splendour glows
Alone ’twixt blue and blue?—
Pure silver are her bulwarks, and aspire
To domes and pinnacles of silver fire,
So holy in their lifted, bright repose,
That, watching them, one’s hopes grow holy too....
O City Celestial, what indeed are you
Beyond mere snows?
My great home-picture, how you satisfy
Far more than brain and eye!
Burden of Beauty! how is the heart to bear thee,
Unless the soul too share thee?
Satisfy? nay, it overwhelms! and yet
Ever more hunger still doth wake and whet.
Ah, here’s more eye-delight than mine can see,
And yet here’s not enough, not Beauty enough for me—
No, clambering up its noble and high peaks,
My spirit o’erpeers them mistily, and speaks,
Stammering of Beauty, Beauty! hid behind it...
O, if I could but find it!
Yes, only in my poor blind human way
Sense I the splendour of this place and day;
And my sight passes Collie’s, it may be,
But by this mean degree—
That passionately I know I do not see!
An eye to gaze, a mind I have, to read,
A heart, a soul, to exult in this great scene,
But Ah, what faculty to fill my need
Of knowing what its dazzling scriptures mean?
O Thou, Whom here on the hill dog-like I dwell beside,
My unseen Artist-Master, Teacher, Guide!
Yon sweet meanderings of blue and green,
Enamell’d purple and bronze,
Curv’d sea-neck like a swan’s,
Curl’d veinings that illume and damascene;
Mist and bright sea, low plain and lofty snows,
City of man that gleams, City of God that glows———
How, to Thine absolute view
That aye the depth can see, the surface through,
Appears the lovely symbol shining there?
What dost Thou see, whereat I do but stare?
The lettering so lovely, what must be
The meaning’s majesty?
What says this curv’d and colour’d charactery?
How reads this rich page of Eternity?
What is our Estuary’s immortal lore?
O, far, far, far from me!
Collie can sense the surface, I may pore
Rapturously the curves and colour o’er,
Spell out the jewel hieroglyphs...., but read?
Ah, there’s my impotence, yet there’s my need!
O, it swims in my eyes, forth from my breast it breaks,
My straining, stretch’d soul aches,
And but one thought redeems me from despair,
Nay, ravishes me!—I know the meaning’s there!
O Master-Artist! when
Wilt Thou enlarge Thy poor man-creature’s ken?
When wilt Thou judge him worthy, ripe to teach,
And useful to be taught,
The truth of Thine emblazon’d Nature-speech,
And through Thy Painting to perceive Thy Thought?
Ah, not more light—abundant here Thy light!—
But, I beseech Thee, Lord, more sight, more sight!