To my mad youth her gentle surveillance
Was like a watch-fire on a rock-bound coast.
She drew about me motherhood, and thou
Hast with Love's holy chrism touched my brow.
MOTHER
She gave me courage when I weakly said,
"O see how drifting, derelict, am I!
The tide runs counter, and the wind is high;
I see no channel through the rocks ahead.
My arm is impotent; what worth to trim
The bending sails! Look, I shall quaff a cup
To Fate, while the wild ocean swallows up
The shipwrecked youth, the man who lives in him."
She said: "But thou hast valour, dear, too much
For such as this; thou hast grave embassy,
Given with thy birth; would'st thou thine honour smutch
With coward failing? Dear son, breast the sea."
Firm-purposed from that hour, through wind and wave,
I brought my message till thou shelter gave.
WHEN FIRST I SAW THEE
When first I saw thee, lady, straightway came
The thought that somehow, somewhere, destiny,
Through blinding paths of happiness or blame,
Would bend my way of life, my soul to thee.
But then I put it from me: was not I
A wanderer? To-morrow I should be
In other lands-beside another sea;
Nay, you were but a star-gleam in my sky.
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