We talk sometimes
with wonder of what the ocean contains, of the treasures that lie
buried far down beneath the waves. But who shall tell of the treasures
that are hidden in the deeper, darker sea of human life, where they
have gone down in the sad hours of defeat and failure?
"In dim green depths rot ingot-laden ships,
While gold doubloons, that from the drowned hand fell,
Lie nestled in the ocean-flowers' bell
With love's gemmed rings once kissed by now dead lips;
And round some wrought-gold cup the sea-grass whips,
And hides lost pearls, near pearls still in their shell
Where sea-weed forests fill each ocean dell,
And seek dim sunlight with their countless tips.
"So lie the wasted gifts, the long-lost hopes,
Beneath the now hushed surface of myself.
In lonelier depths than where the river gropes,
They lie deep, deep; but I at times behold,
In doubtful glimpses, on some reefy shelf,
The gleam of irrecoverable gold."
Glimpses of these lost things--these squandered treasures, these wasted
possibilities, these pearls and gems of life that have gone down into
the sea of our past--we may have when the reefs are left bare by the
refluent tides, but glimpses only can we see. We cannot recover our
treasures. The gleams only mock us. The past will not give again its
gold and pearls to any frantic appealing of ours.
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