Page:Poems Jackson.djvu/93

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THE SINGER'S HILLS.
57
  When the tide goes out,
The hearts are wrung with fear and doubt:
  All trace of joy seems lost.
  Will the tide return?
In restless questioning they yearn,
With hands unclasped, uncrossed,
  They weep, on separate ways.
Ah'! darling, shall we ever learn
  Love's tidal hours and days?


THE SINGER'S HILLS.
HE dwelt where level lands lay low and drear,
Long stretches of waste meadow pale and sere,
With dull seas languid tiding up and down,
Turning the lifeless sands from white to brown,—
Wide barren fields for miles and miles, until
The pale horizon walled them in, and still
No lifted peak, no slope, not even mound
To raise and cheer the weary eye was found.
From boyhood up and down these dismal lands,
And pacing to and fro the barren sands,
And always gazing, gazing seaward, went
The Singer. Daily with the sad winds blent
His yearning voice.
His yearning voice."There must be hills," he said,
"I know they stand at sunset rosy red,
And purple in the dewy shadowed morn;
Great forest trees like babes are rocked and borne