The Voice Of Things

Lyrics

Forty Augusts—aye, and several more—ago,     When I paced the headlands loosed from dull employ, The waves huzza'd like a multitude below     In the sway of an all-including joy         Without cloy. Blankly I walked there a double decade after,     When thwarts had flung their toils in front of me, And I heard the waters wagging in a long ironic laughter     At the lot of men, and all the vapoury         Things that be. Wheeling change has set me again standing where     Once I heard the waves huzza at Lammas-tide; But they supplicate now—like a congregation there     Who murmur the Confession—I outside,          Prayer denied.