Elizabeth Barrett Browning - A Sea-side Walk lyrics

   We walked beside the sea
After a day which perished silently
Of it's own glory like the princess weird
Who, combating the Genius
Scorched and seared
Uttered with burning breath, "Ho! victory!"
And sank adown, a heap of ashes pale:
   So runs the Arab tale

   The sky above us showed
A 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 it's 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 it's 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 and 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