The wave yearns at the cliff foot: its pale arms
Reach upward and relapse, like down-dropped hands;
The baffled tides slip backward evermore,
And a long sighing murmurs round the sands . . .
My heart is as the wave that lifts and falls:
Tall is the cliff—oh! tall as that dim star
That crowns its summit hidden in a cloud—
Tall as the dark and holy heavens are.
The sad strange wreckage of full many ships
Burdens the bitter waters’ ebb and flow:
Gold diadems, like slowly falling flames,
Lighten the restless emerald gulfs below;
And withered blossoms float, and silken webs,
And pallid faces framed in wide-spread hair,
And bubble-globes that seethe with peacock hues,
And jewelled hands, half-open, cold and fair.
Sea creatures move beneath: their swift sleek touch
Begets sweet madness and unworthy fire—
Scaled women—triton-things, whose dark seal eyes
Are hot and bloodshot with a man’s desire.
Their strange arms clasp: the sea-pulse in their veins
Beats like the surf of the immortal sea—
Strong, glad and soulless: elemental joys
Bathe with green flame the sinking soul of me.
Downward and down—to passionate purple looms,
Athrill with thought-free, blurred, insatiate life,
Where the slow-throbbing sea-flow sways like weed
Dim figures blended in an amorous strife—
I am enclasped, I sink; but the wave lifts,
With all its freight of treasure and of death,
In sullen foamless yearning towards the height
Where the star burns above the vapour-wreath;
And a deep sob goes up, and all the caves
Are filled with mourning and a sorrow-sound.
The green fire fades: I rise: I see the star—
Gone are the triton arms that clipped me round.
Hope beats like some lost bird against the cliff—
The granite cliff above the burdened wave,
Whose fleeting riches are more desolate
Than gems dust-mingled in a nameless grave . . .
When all the wordless thirsts of Time are slaked,
And all Earth’s yearning hungers sweetly fed,
And the Sea’s grief is stilled, and the Wind’s cry,
And Day and Night clasp on one glowing bed—
Oh! in that hour shall clay and flame be blent—
Love find its perfect lover, breast on breast—
When dream and dreamer at the last are one,
And joy is folded in the arms of jest.
Dulcie Deamer (1890 – 1972) was a New Zealand-born Australian novelist, poet, journalist, and actress.
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