Page:Poems and ballads (IA poemsballads00swinrich).pdf/60

Had you loved me once, as you have not loved;
⁠Had the chance been with us that has not been.

I have put my days and dreams out of mind,
⁠Days that are over, dreams that are done.
Though we seek life through, we shall surely find
⁠There is none of them clear to us now, not one.
But clear are these things; the grass and the sand,
Where, sure as the eyes reach, ever at hand,
With lips wide open and face burnt blind,
⁠The strong sea-daisies feast on the sun.

The low downs lean to the sea; the stream,
⁠One loose thin pulseless tremulous vein,
Rapid and vivid and dumb as a dream,
⁠Works downward, sick of the sun and the rain;
No wind is rough with the rank rare flowers;
The sweet sea, mother of loves and hours,
Shudders and shines as the grey winds gleam,
⁠Turning her smile to a fugitive pain.

Mother of loves that are swift to fade,
⁠Mother of mutable winds and hours.
A barren mother, a mother-maid,
⁠Cold and clean as her faint salt flowers.
I would we twain were even as she,
Lost in the night and the light of the sea,
Where faint sounds falter and wan beams wade,
⁠Break, and are broken, and shed into showers.