A wave
Throbs restless in the darkness on the sea.
Glorious in heaven shines a strong white star,
Sending long slender lines of level light
Serenely through the stillness; and the wave
Takes to its heart the beautiful bright thing,
Unconscious that it now stands self-revealed
In its own palpitating restlessness.
“How very strange,” it murmurs to itself,
“That a great radiant star should tremble so,
Even as I do; and more strange it seems,
That it should be so willing to betray
Itself by shining.”
And meanwhile in heaven
The star, with eyes fixed only upon God,
Sweeps through the stately circles of the skies
In motion grand as silence; undisturbed
And self-contained; not dreaming that below,
A little wave whose tremulous young heart
Has caught a little of its brightness, thinks
To read and to interpret for itself
The heavenly mysteries.
Even so I hear
Men call it strange that poets should reveal
The sacred secrets of their inmost souls
To every idlest reader.