White Head
Prone on the northern water,
That laps him about the breast,
Like the Sphinx in the sand, forever
The giant lies in rest.
The sails drive swift before him,
And the surf beats at his lip,
But the gray eyes look out seaward
Noting nor wave nor ship.
The centuries drift over,
He marks not with smile nor frown,
Drift over him cloud and sea-gull,
Swallow and thistledown.
I, of the race that passes,
Quick with its hope and its fear,
Lean on his brow and question,
Plead at his senseless ear:
“What of thy past unmeasured?
And what of the peoples gone?
What of the sea’s first singing?
What of the primal dawn?
“What was the weird that bowed thee?
How did the struggle cease?
Out of what Titan anguish
Issued thy hopeless peace?”
Nothing the pale lips utter,
What hath been, nor what shall be;
Under the brow’s stern shadow,
The gray eyes look to sea.
The blue glows round and over,
Thin-veiled, as it were God’s face;
I feel the breath, the spirit,
That knows nor time nor space.
And my heart grieves for the giant
In his pitiful repose,
Mocked by the vagrant gladness
Of a laggard brier-rose;
Mocked to his face from seaward
By the flash and whirl of wings;
Mocked from the grass above him,
By life that creeps and sings.
I care not for his wisdom,
His secret unconfessed;
I yearn toward rose and cricket,
Ephemeral and blest.
Ah! if he might, how would he
Quicken to love and to tears;
For my immortal minute
Barter his endless years!
He rests on the restless water,
And I on the grasses brown,
Drift over us cloud and sea-gull,
Swallow and thistledown.
Copyright Credit: n/a
Source: The Poems of Sophie Jewett (1910)