To a Wave

By Inez K. Hyland

1863-1892


Where were you yesterday? In Gulistan,
         With roses and the frenzied nightingales?
Rather would I believe you shining ran
         With peaceful floods, where the soft voice prevails
Of building doves in lordly trees set high,
         Trees which enclose a home where love abides --
His love and hers, a passioned ecstasy;
         Your tone has caught its echo and derides
My joyless lot, as face down pressed I lie
         Upon the shifting sand, and hear the reeds
Voicing a thin, dissonant threnody
         Unto the cliff and wind-tormented weeds.
As with the faint half-lights of jade toward
         The shore you come and show a violet hue,
I wonder if the face of my adored
         Was ever held importraitured by you.
Ah, no! if you had seen his face, still prest
         Within your hold the picture dear would be,
Like that bright portrait which so moved the breast
         Of fairest Gurd with soft unrest that she,
Born in ice halls, she who but raised her eyes
         And scornful questioned, "What is love, indeed?
None ever viewed it 'neath these northern skies," --
         Seeing the face soon learned love's gentle creed;
But you hold nothing to be counted dear --
         Only a gift of weed and broken shells;
Yet I will gather one, so I can hear
         The soft remembrance which still in it dwells:
For in the shell, though broken, ever lies
         The murmur of the sea whence it was torn --
So in a woman's heart there never dies
         The memory of love, though love be lorn.

DayPoems Poem No. 911
<a href="http://www.daypoems.net/poems/911.html">To a Wave by Inez K. Hyland</a>

The DayPoems Poetry Collection, www.daypoems.net
Timothy Bovee, editor

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