Upon the Sands

I took his cheeks between my hands,I kissed his face and forehead o'er,Where he lay on the sheeted sandsWhich stretched along the shore.

The surf crawled slowly up, and sad,Like some sea-dog which owned his sway,And yet had rent him—sightless, mad,It came and moaned all day.

But there he lay, so still and white;I dared not weep, I thought he slept.The tearless day shrank back from night;I might have woke him had I wept.

The night sank down into the seas,New morning burst upon the skies;And with its first breath on the breezeI stooped and kissed his eyes.But when he woke not even then,Although my whispers stirred his hair,I knew he breathed, away from men,A higher and a purer air.

The essence of a Godhead's breath,And that the sleep my darling slept,Was called of us the body's death—And then at length I wept.