Too Late Poem by Bessie Rayner Parkes

THE palms are yellowing in the Autumn heat,
I hate the ripple of that tideless sea,
But worse the line where sky and water meet,
And the north wind that brings no help to me.
It only blows the clouds
And ships that in their shrouds
Carry no ransom for my dull despair;
As day by day I pace
Through this accursed place,
The sunlight settles with a mocking glare
On me constrained to breathe this deadly air.

How many months have gone since last my sails
(Or is it days? or years? I do not know,)
Threaded the busy harbour of Marseilles?
How long since first I fell on this great woe?
By my grey hair it should be long ago.
And since she cometh not,
Perhaps she hath forgot,
And only plucks the grapes that idly hang
Over the southern wall,
And hears the owlets call,
Just as they answered us when once we sang.
I wonder if she sings those songs alone--
I hear that matchless treble in my dreams
Till gradually it takes a deeper tone;--
And when I wake and shriek--the guttural screams
Of these dark demons sound
Up from the inner ground,
Fulfilling their abominable rites--
Was it her voice I heard?--
Or the warbling of a bird?--
Or music circling round the altar lights?

I think this dreadful town is like a rock
Which stands up pitiless before the sea,
Hewn, in the surface of its single block,
With countless crannies for its tenantry
Of evil birds of prey;
Cruel and dark are they
As any vultures that pick out the slain,--
These men of stealthy tread
And heavy eyes of lead,
And soft slow voices strung for giving pain.

What is the meaning of that dim grey speck
Which nears so steadily this awful shore!
I see a sail--a prow--a flag--a deck--
God! do I see or do I fancy more!
A woman with the crew!
Brown hair and eyes of blue!
And in her hand the gold which buys my fate!'--
Breathless she urged the men,
She sprang to shore--but then
Reeling he fell--the ransom came too late!