OFF SHORE.
87
And the lines displaced,
They scatter as wild swans parting adrift on the wan
green waste.
At the hush of his word
In a pause of his breath
When the waters have heard
His will that he saith,
They stand as a flock penned close in its fold for
division of death.
As a flock by division
Of death to be thinned,
As the shades in a vision
Of spirits that sinned;
So glimmer their shrouds and their sheetings as clouds on
the stream of the wind.