Flame and Water

TWO POEMS

FLAME AND WATER

She said she would never marry any man

To let him go to sea. Her mother knew

Too much of that heartache, but rather than

Deny her husband, did as he willed to do.

But Abbie could not nurture peace that way:

There was no consecration of the flame.

She had best remain the cenotaph of clay

Her body was. . . . Then dark Peter came

And talked so much of quiet farms inland

That Abbie let the sea dim into space,

And wondered why she could not understand

The strange dark fire which burned in Peter's face.

She married him and let the question be.

The flame burned high . . . and Peter stayed from sea.

But he grew hard in time, and flame was hot;

Till Abbie took to frequenting the piers

And gazing out to sea, and wished she had got

A sailor, though at cost of anxious tears.

The flesh alone was cool, and she could wait

Much longer than her husband could; now she

Must yield her body's burning, high and late-

If only Peter would go away to sea! . . .

One day dark Peter said he had bought a ship.

It wakened life to rapture in her heart.

She said goodbye, she stood to watch him"slip

Out with the tide, and reassumed her part,

Knowing the truth with every seaman's daughter-

How love comes like a flame and goes like water.