RETURN

by: Zona Gale (1874-1938)

OW they come back . . . I never see retreat

Down the long beach the phalanx of bright foam

But faint across the fields that fold them home

I hear the rhythmic fall of speeding feet.

And they who loved the garden of the sea

And died, come back. I never know a land

Of cities but there come to me

Their dead to touch my hand.

 

Dead, who dare not let your eyes

Flower from the dusk and flame into our own,

Yet come you as hushed notes in harmonies

To ways of life that you have known:

Virgil in blowing sprays round swift-prowed ships,

Dante in every cry of lips for lips.

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