REFUGE
by: William Winter (1836-1917)
- ET your face to the sea, fond
lover,--
- Cold in the darkness the sea-winds blow!
- Waves and clouds and the night will cover
- All your passion and all your woe:
- Sobbing waves, and the death within them,
- Sweet as the lips that once you prest--
- Pray that your hopeless heart may win them!
- Pray that your weary life may rest!
-
- Set your face to the stars, fond lover,--
- Calm, and silent, and bright, and true!--
- They will pity you, they will hover
- Softly over the deep for you.
- Winds of heaven will sigh your dirges,
- Tears of heaven for you be spent,
- And sweet for you will the murmuring surges
- Pour the wail of their low lament.
-
- Set your face to the lonely spaces,
- Vast and gaunt, of the midnight sky!
- There, with the drifting cloud, your place is,
- There with the griefs that cannot die.
- Love is a mocking fiend's derision,
- Peace a phantom, and faith a snare!
- Make the hope of your heart a vision--
- Look to heaven, and find it there!
"Refuge" is reprinted
from The Little Book of American Poets: 1787-1900. Ed.
Jessie B. Rittenhouse. Cambridge: Riverside Press, 1915. |
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POEMS BY WILLIAM WINTER |
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