Page:Enoch Arden, etc - Tennyson - 1864.djvu/115

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SEA DREAMS.
99
Touching, upjetted in spirts of wild sea-smoke,And scaled in sheets of wasteful foam, and fellIn vast sea-cataracts—ever and anonDead claps of thunder from within the cliffsHeard thro’ the living roar. At this the babe,Their Margaret cradled near them, wail’d and wokeThe mother, and the father suddenly cried,‘A wreck, a wreck!’ then turn’d, and groaning said,
 ‘Forgive! How many will say, “forgive,” and findA sort of absolution in the soundTo hate a little longer! No; the sinThat neither God nor man can well forgive,Hypocrisy, I saw it in him at once.Is it so true that second thoughts are best?Not first, and third, which are a riper first?Too ripe, too late! they come too late for use.Ah love, there surely lives in man and beastSomething divine to warn them of their foes:And such a sense, when first I fronted him,
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