Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE NORTH SHORE WATCH, by GEORGE EDWARD WOODBERRY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE NORTH SHORE WATCH, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: All things are lovely as they were, and still
Last Line: With phosphorescent gleams, and dark oars dropping light.
Subject(s): Death; Friendship; Nature; Seashore; Dead, The; Beach; Coast; Shore


ALL things are lovely as they were, and still
They draw with gladness toward me as a friend;
The evening star doth touch me with the thrill
Of welcome, and the waves their voices blend
To hail my exile's end.
Oft while I wandered in those weary lands,
This dear-remembered shore would comfort me,
Seeing in thought the everlasting sea
Washing his yellow sands;
But now the scene I longed for gives me pain
Since he is dead, and ne'er shall feel its joy again.

Still planet, making beautiful the west,
Bright bringer of the stars and sheltered sleep,
Easing our hearts, as some beloved guest,
Whom for a little while our eyes may keep,
And through long years shall weep;
O eloquent with flashes to the soul,
Even as his eyes beneath thy pure empire
Beamed the mute music of the heart's desire,
Thee, too, doth fate control;
And brief as his thy hour of light must be—
To earth her starry hush, my solitude to me!

Yet here our dayspring long ago was born,
While heaven still hovered near earth's dusky frame;
Light touched the isles, and joyously the morn
O'erflowed the orient with prophetic flame,
And on the waters came,
Crimson and pearl, and woke the singing shore;
On over murmuring waves the glad light swept;
On through the west the loosened glory leapt
The far blue uplands o'er;
And slowly rose the sun, and made the sea
White with his splendor, and filled heaven with purity.

Upon this beach we welcomed in the world,
And loved the lore of its wise solitude,
Where on the foaming sands the surges swirled,
Or broad, blue-belted calm, in blessed brood,
Lay many a shining rood;
Here in that prime we kept our boyish tryst,
When woke our April and the need to rove;
We trod the mantle that the white moon wove,
We pierced the star-looped mist;
And ever where our eager feet might roam,
The air was morning, and the loneliest spot was home.

The eloquent voices of the yearning sea
Called to us, strong as syllables of fate,
And, wafting in, like some lost memory,
Subdued us to the haunting hopes that wait
Round boyhood's rapt estate;
The deep spell moved, a passion in our blood,
And made the throbbing of our hearts keep time
Unto the laughter of the waves, and chime
With thunders of the flood;
And subtly as a dream takes hue and form,
Our spirits clothed their youth in ocean's sun and storm.

Still would we watch, wave-borne from dawn to dark,
The pools of opal gem the windless bay;
Or touch at eve the purple isles, and mark
Where, by the moon, far on the edge of day,
The shore's pale crescent lay;
Or up broad river-reaches are we gone,
Through sunset mirrored in the hollow tide—
In beauty sphered, as some lone bird enskied,
The halcyon boat drifts on,
To twilight, and the stars, and deepest night,
With phosphorescent gleams, and dark oars dropping light.





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