A Sea-Side Walk

by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

    We walked beside the sea,
    After a day which perished silently
    Of its own glory, like the Princess weird
    Who, combating the Genius, scorched and seared,
    Uttered with burning breath, "Ho! victory!"
    And sank adown, an heap of ashes pale;
    So runs the Arab tale.

    The sky above us showed
    An universal and unmoving cloud,
    On which, the cliffs permitted us to see
    Only the outline of their majesty,
    As master-minds, when gazed at by the crowd!
    And, shining with a gloom, the water grey
    Swang in its moon-taught way.

    Nor moon nor stars were out.
    They did not dare to tread so soon about,
    Though trembling, in the footsteps of the sun.
    The light was neither night's nor day's, but one
    Which, life-like, had a beauty in its doubt;
    And Silence's impassioned breathings round
    Seemed wandering into sound.

    O solemn-beating heart
    Of nature! I have knowledge that thou art
    Bound unto man's by cords he cannot sever,
    And, what time they are slackened by him ever,
    So to attest his own supernal part,
    Still runneth thy vibration fast and strong,
    The slackened cord along.

    For though we never spoke
    Of the grey water anal the shaded rock,
    Dark wave and stone, unconsciously, were fused


    Into the plaintive speaking that we used,
    Of absent friends and memories unforsook;
    And, had we seen each other's face, we had
    Seen haply, each was sad.