Page:Poems Craik.djvu/182

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164
ON THE CLIFF-TOP.
Clasp, arms; cling, soul; eyes, drink anew
The beauty that returns with breath:
Faith, that out-loved this trance-like death,
May see this resurrection too.


ON THE CLIFF-TOP.
FACE upward to the sky
Quiet I lie:
Quiet as if the ringer of God's will
Had bade this human mechanism "be still!"
And sent the intangible essence, this strange I,
All wondering forth to His eternity.

Below, the sea's sound, faint
As dying saint
Telling of gone-by sorrows long at rest:
Above, the fearless sea-gull's shimmering breast
Painted a moment on the dark blue skies—
A hovering joy, that while I watch it flies.

Alike unheeded now
Old griefs, and thou
Quick-wingèd Joy, that like a bird at play
Pleasest thyself to visit me to-day: