Masks (Poem by Edwin John Dove Pratt)

Masks

By Edwin John Dove Pratt

        What hidden soul residing

        Within these forms, O sea!

        Should, every hour changing,

        To Time yet changeless be?

        What masks hast thou not worn,

        What parts not played,

        Thou Prince of all the Revels

        In Life's Masquerade?

        Light-hearted as a jester,

        The motley fits thy mood,

        As the gold and the purple,

        Thy statelier habitude.

                At dawn — 

A trumpeter preluding a day's pageant.

                At noon — 

A dancer weaving new measures around the

        furrows of ships with white sails.

                Later — 

A courier with sealed tidings hastening towards the shore.

                At sunset — 

A dyer steeping colors on a bay.

                Again — 

A sculptor teasing faces out of the moonlit foam on a reef.

Or carving bric-a-brac upon a beach,

Or fashioning, with age-toiled hands, a grotto

        out of limestone.

                The wind blows — 

And a master puts a flute to his lips.

                It blows again — 

And his fingers take hold of organ stops ....