A Seaside Walk By Elizabeth Barrett Browning We walked beside the sea After a day which perished silently Of its own glory,
Like the Princess Weird Who,
Combating the genius,
Scorched and seared,
Uttered with burning breath,
O Victory!
And sink down,
And heap of ashes pale,
So runs the Arab Tale The sky above us showed an universal and unmoving cloud On which the cliffs permitted us to see,
Only the outline of their majesty As masterminds,
When gazed at by the crowd,
And shining with a gloom the water gray Swang in its moon-taught way.
Nor moon nor stars were out,
They did not dare To tread so soon about,
Though trembling in the footsteps of the sun.
The light was neither nights nor days,
But one,
Which,
Life-like,
Had a beauty in its doubt,
And silences and passion-breathing round,
Seemed wandering into sound.
O solemn beating heart of nature,
I have knowledge that thou art Bound unto man's by cords he cannot sever,
And what time they are slackened by him ever,
So to attest his own supernal part,
Still runneth thy vibration,
Fast and strong,
The slackened cord along.
For though we never spoke of the gray water and the shaded rock,
Dark wave and stone unconsciously were fused Into the plaintive speaking that we used of absent friends and memories unforesuck.
And had we seen each other's face,
We had seen happily,
Each was sad.
