Poems (Trask)/Dead and Alive

by Clara Augusta Jones Trask

DEAD AND ALIVE.

There's a vague and terrible something, to-night,
 Abroad in the depths of the air,—
Its ghost-like breath is cold on my face,
 Its fingers are cold in my hair;
I stand on the headland barren and bleak,
 And strain my eyes through the dark,
And I see but the surges toss wearily up
 And break on the pebble-strewn arc,—
The arc of the cape, where the lighthouse gleams,
 A blood-red, tremulous spark.

What do I look for, coming to me,—
 To me, from the waste of the seas?
Orient gems, sweet-smelling spices, and silks,
 Breast-high in the slow argosies?
What are jewels and odors to me,—
 A regnant queen in my pride?
What do I care if the merchant-ships
 Are tossed on the treacherous tide?
They are not with my fortune, or with my thoughts,
 By the frailest tenure allied.

I wonder—I'm full of wonder, to-night—
 If the mist that is rolling down
Would choke the mortal cries of a soul,—
 A soul that the ocean would drown?
I wonder if men, when they struggle for life
 In the sinuous arms of the sea,
Have leisure to think while sinking down, down,
 To think of the fearful To-Be?
I wonder if he, should he perish to-night,
 Would cast back a thought after me?

Through the rain, and the spoon-drift, I fancy I see
 The ghastly white form of a ship,—
I hear the strain of the cordage aloft,
 And the cutwater's laboring clip,—
Only a moment,—the vision is gone;
 I hear but the wind sweep the shore,
And see but the death-cold gray of the fog,
 And the billows toss up as before;
But the cry of a drowning, agonized soul
 Will ring in my ears evermore!

I know it! I feel it here in my breast!
 Gone down in the horrible deep!
Uncoffined, unknelled,—no kiss on his lips
 To reconcile him to his sleep!
To lie in unquiet for ages to come,
 While I must exist as I be!
Be pitiful of me, sweet saints in Heaven,
 Death in life compasses me!
My Thought and my Breath walk lonesomely here,
 And my Heart lies buried at sea.