When there wakes any wind to shake this place,
This wave-hemmed atom of land on which I dwell,
My fancy conquers time, condition, space, —
A trivial sound begets a miracle!
Last night there walked a wind, and, through chink,
It made one pan upon another clink
Where each hung close together on a nail —
Then fantasy put forth her fullest sail;
A dawn that never dies came back to me:
I heard two ship’s bells echoing far at sea!
As perfect as a poet dreams a star
It was a full-rigged ship bore down the wind,
Piled upward with white-crowding spar on spar:
The wonder of it never leaves my mind.
We passed her moving proudly far at sea;
Night was not quite yet gone, nor day begun;
She stood, a phantom of sheer loveliness,
Against the first flush of an ocean dawn;
Then at the elevation of the sun,
Her ship’s bell faintly sounded the event,
While ours with a responding tinkle went.
The beauty life evokes, outlasting men,
It fills my world from sea to sky again;
It opens on me like a shining scroll —
The ghost of God that ever haunts the soul!
(Harry Kemp)
More Poetry from Harry Kemp:
Harry Kemp Poems based on Topics: Man, God, Night, Time, Place, Space, Curiosity, Literature, Poets, Mind, Soul- The Chantey Of The Cook (dithyramb of a discontented crew) (Harry Kemp Poems)
- The Doldrums (A Still-Life Picture) (Harry Kemp Poems)
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- A Whaler's Confession (Harry Kemp Poems)
- The Remedy (Harry Kemp Poems)
- Clipper Days (a song from Snug Harbor) (Harry Kemp Poems)
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