On Manly Beach Poem by Robert Atkinson

IT has taken all time for that wave to swell,
Low-ridged, from the ocean over the bay.
While cEons withered and nations fell,
Precursors fixed for this moment's sway,
Till swift, like a frosted sword, should reach

Waters running with foam and spray,
Loud and white to the peopled beach,
In the sheen of the westering day.

Down, far down in the gulfs of Time,

Crumbling centuries, heap on heap,
Rot forgotten ere world and clime

Split the chaos of timeless sleep.
Numberless ages, in limitless space,

Bore this day that that wave might sweep.
As forth from the worlds they create and efface.

Back into the silence deep.

Down and down with each breath they sink,

Grim, spectral throbbings of Time outworn.
Through depthless, visionless vaults they shrink -

Blind forever to dusk and dawn -
Wraiths potential that huddle and cower,

Vacant and voiceless, long forsworn,
That this wave might flash, rush forward, and shower

Alive in its flight forlorn.
For it took all time ere that wave could burst

With all presaged of it, curve and hue :
How from that headland rocks immersed

Would blur the long glimmering green and blue,
Wan with the dusk-gray glamour of night,

Fragrant and mellow, and soft with dew;
All time lay prone for one moment's might -

Now one with the void anew.

It was not once and it is not now.

Fulfilment sudden existed and ceased;
Strong to be, though one knows not how.

One wave seethed forth from the wind-wet east;
And Time all past for this end subdued

Suns and planets, and bud and beast.
And men's joy and their laughter and passion and feud,

In the riot of battle and feast

No; nothing exists but the souls of men,

The Soul of God that has burst into spray;
From desert and mire and through forest and fen

We flickered and died, as we die each day
In our doubt and our sorrow, and life's own joy

Throbs in our blood, for we live, I say.
Who die each moment, glad to decoy

Woe for the dread of our love's decay I
We live - we can perish not; all things change -

This rock and those skies : I am still, you remain
Soul-centred, bewildered by thoughts that estrange

You from yourself. Thoughts stored in your brain,
Age-long, inherited, guard you well -

Well from that wisdom no death shall disdain,
When Time shall be silenced and heaven and hell

Lapse - lapse from our life again.