Sea Poems

PATHS

Crushing in my handThe bay as I pass,Drinking in its fragranceWith the sea's scent,While gull-wings writePoems white and fastOn the blue skyThat is soft with content;Crushing in my handThe bay and the juniper,While I recordEach line the gulls write,I go by sea pathsDown to the sea's edge,I go by heart pathsDeep into delight.Simple is my joyAs the little sandpiper's,Who follows beside meWith silvery song;Blither than the breeze,That skims great billowsNor knows how deepIs their flow – or strong.Simple is my joy,A sunny sense-sweetness,Full of bird-bliss,Bay-warmth, spray-leap.Mysteries there areAnd miseries beneath it,But sunk, like wrecks,Far down in the deep.

FROM A NORTHERN BEACH

Is it because for a million yearsThe tide has entered hereFrom cold north seasWhere ice-floes freezeThat ever unto my earPrimordial loneness in its voiceComes telling of that timeWhen life was not, upon the earth,But only glacier-rime?Is it because these granite rocksI share with weed and scurfWere held so longBy the ice-throngThat now they take the surfSo selflessly and soullessly,As if God's ImmanenceHad been pressed from them, never moreTo enter, with sweet sense?And is it because I, too, evolvedFrom ice and sea and shore,Can understandHow life has spannedThe lifeless ages o'er,That as I sit here, suddenlyThe tide again seems stilledAnd earth beneath a great white pallAgain lies changed and chilled?So it must be – ah, so; for softWithin my muted brainThe heritageOf age on ageReverberates again.Wherefore when glacial Silence comesWith Death shall I emergeFrom that as from the frozen Past,Under Life's endless urge?

PASSAGE

A dark sail,Like a wild-goose wing,Where the sunset was.The moon soon will silver its sinewy flightThro the night watches,And the far flightOf those immortal migrants,The ever-returning stars.

ALEEN

The long line of the foaming coastIs muffled by the fog's gray ghost.I cross the league of sea betweenAnd lift the latch and kiss Aleen.She throws a log upon the fire.I draw her to me, nigh and nigher.She does not know what a brief timeAgo it was my arms held – crime.The surf is beating on the shore.We hear our own heart-beatings more.She speaks of him and my replyIs silence: does she wonder why?"I do not love him: have no fear,"Her whisper is, against my ear.At last, "I have no fear," say I.She starts, as at a wild-beast's cry.And then she sees red on my coat.A still-born cry throbs in her throat.The fog sweeps by the window pane.Her sight is fixed on one dull stain.I rise and light my pipe and go,Leaving her standing, staring so.The wind means storm, I think, to-night:But more than that will make her white.And yet had it been yesterdayShe said those words, I still could pray.There would be still a God above —For two, now overwhelmed, to love!

TO A SOLITARY SEA-GULL

Lone white gull with sickle wings,You reap for the heart inscrutable things:Sorrow of mists and surf of the shore,Winds that sigh of the nevermore;Fret of foam and flurry of rain,Swept far over the troubled tide;Maths of mystery and grey painThe sea's voice ever yields, beside.Lone white gull, you reap for the heartLife's most sad and inscrutable part.

INEFFABLE THINGS

The little song-sparrow is goneAnd the summer is nearly ended,The rill of his song was a happy riftIn the surging sound of the sea.The swallow is lingering on,And the silvery swift sandpiper,And I – tho I know my saddened heartHas lost an ineffable thing,That summer no more can bring.With the first bay-leaves that flungTheir scent to me by the billows,I twined some faith, some trust,As glad as the sparrow's song.And the terns that darted amongThe tides seemed weaving for meImpalpable wings of peace and hope —That now have taken flightBeyond the day and the night.Ah, Life, you have known my pleaFor sun and the tide of fortune,For winds to waken my sail and bearMe joyously over the world.Know too how much of your fogAnd storm and rain I will suffer,If only you do not sweep from meThe dear ineffable things,To which your fragrance clings.

THE SONG OF A SEA-FARER

Many are on the sea to-dayWith all sails set.The tide rolls in a restive gray,The wind blows wet.The gull is weary of his wings,And I am weary of all things.Heavy upon me longing lies,My sad eyes gazeAcross sad leagues that sink and riseAnd sink always.My life has sunk and risen so,I'd have it cease awhile to flow.

WAVES

The evening sails come homeWith twilight in their wings.The harbour-light across the gloamSprings;The wind sings.The waves begin to tellThe sea's night-sorrow o'er,Weaving within their ancient spellMoreThan earth's lore.The rising moon wafts strangeLow lures across the tide,On which my dim thoughts seem to range,StrideUpon stride,Until, with flooding thrill,They seem at last to blendWith waves that from the Eternal WillWend,Without end.

IN A STORM

(To a Petrel)All day long in the spindrift swinging,Bird of the sea! bird of the sea!How I would that I had thy winging —How I envy thee!How I would that I had thy spirit,So to careen, joyous to cry,Over the storm and never fear it!Into the night that hovers near it!Calm on a reeling sky!All day long, and the night, unresting!Ah! I believe thy every breathMeans that life's best comes ever breastingPeril and pain and death!

AFTER THEIR PARTING

(A Woman Speaks)You know that rock on a rocky coast,Where the moon came up, a ruined ghost,Distorted until her shape almostSeemed breaking?Came up like a phantom silentlyAnd dropped her shroud on the red night sea,Then walked, a spectral mystery,Unwaking?You know how, sudden, there came a change,When she had left the sea's low range,Its lurid crimson, stark and strange,Behind her?How, sudden, her silver self shone thro,Tranquilly free of the earth's stained hue,And found a way where the clouds were fewTo bind her?You know this? Then go back some day,When I have gone the moonless way,To that dark rock whereon we layAnd waited;And when the moon has arisen free,Your soiling doubt shall fall from me,And eased of unrest your heart shall be,And sated.

A WORD'S MAGIC

Do you remember Etajima,And how, upon a moon-fogged sea,As ghostly as ever a tide shall be,We passed an island silently?And how a low voice in the gloomOf the temple pine-trees leaning thereSaid sayonara to one somewhereUnseen in the shadow-haunted air?Just sayonara: but it seemedThe soul of all farewells that night,The sigh of all withdrawn delight,The sound of love's last rapture-rite.And now, after long years, it comesAgain from isles of memoryTo bring once more to birth in meThe breath of all lost witchery.Yes, one low word of parting, nowEchoing, thro the fog of years,Has touched my heart with beauty's tears,And youth thro all things reappears.

SEA RHAPSODY

(Out of Hong-kong)Never again, never againDid I hope to breathe such joy!The sea is blue and the winds hallooUp to the sun "Ahoy!""Ahoy!" they shout and the mists they routFrom the mountain-tops go streamingIn happy play where the gulls sway,And a million waves are gleaming!And every wave, billowing brave,Is tipped with a wild delight.A garden of isles around me smiles,Bathed in the blue noon light,The rude brown bunk of the fishing junkSeems fair as a sea-king's palace:O wine of the sky the gods have spiltOut of its crystal chalice!For wine is the wind, wine the sea,Wine for the sinking spirit,To lift it up from the cling of clayInto high Bliss – or near it!So let me drink till I cease to think,And know with a sting of raptureThat joy is yet as wide as the worldFor men, at last, to capture!

IN AN ORIENTAL HARBOUR

All the ships of the world come here,Rest a little, then set to sea;Some ride up to the waiting pier,Some drop anchor beyond the quay.Some have funnels of blue and black,(Some come once but come not back!)Some have funnels of red and yellow,Some – O war! – have funnels of gray.All the ships of the world come here,Ships from every billow's foam;Fruiter and oiler, pirateer,Liner and lugger and tramp a-roam.Some are scented of palm and pine,(Some are fain for the Pole's far clime).Some are scented of soy and senna,Some – ah me! – are scented of home.All the ships of the world come here,Day and night there is sound of bells,Seeking the port they calmly steer,Clearing the port they ring farewells.Under the sun or under the stars(Under the light of swaying spars),Under the moon or under morningDo they swing, as the tide swells.All the ships of the world come here,Rest a little and then are gone,Over the crystal planet-sphereSwept, thro every season, on.Swept to every cape and isle(Every coast of cloud or smile),Swept till over them sweeps the sorrowOf their last sea-dawn.

UNDER THE SKY

Far out to sea go the fishing junks,With all sails set,The tide swings gray and the clouds sway,The wind blows wet;Blows wet from the long coast lying dimAs if mist-born.Far out they sail, as the stars pale,The stars of morn.Far out to sea go the fishing junks,And I who passUpon a deck that is vaster reckNo more, alas,Of all their life, or they of mine,Than comes to this, —That under the sky we live and die,Like all that is.

A SONG FOR HEALING

(On the South Seas)When I return to the world again,The world of fret and fight,To grapple with godless things and men,In battle, wrong or right,I will remember this – the sea,And the white stars hanging high,And the vessel's bowWhere calmly nowI gaze to the boundless sky.When I am deaf with the din of strife,And blind amid despair,When I am choked with the dust of lifeAnd long for free soul-air,I will recall this sound – the sea's,And the wide horizon's hope,And the wind that blowsAnd the phosphor snowsThat fall as the cleft waves ope.When I am beaten – when I fallOn the bed of black defeat,When I have hungered, and in gallHave got but shame to eat,I will remember this – the sea,And its tide as soft as sleep,And the clear night skyThat heals for ayeAll who will trust its Deep.

A SINGHALESE LOVE LAMENT

As the cocoanut-palmThat pines, my love,Away from the soundOf the planter's voice,Am I, for I hearNo more resoundYour song by the pearl-strewn sea!The sun may comeAnd the moon wax round,And in its beamMy mates may rejoice,But I feast notAnd my heart is dumb,As I long, O long, for thee!In the jungle-deeps,Where the cobra creeps,The leopard liesIn wait for me,But O, my love,When the daylight diesThere is more to my dread than he!Harsh lonely tearsThat assail my eyesAre worse to bear, —For the miseryThat makes them wellIs the long, long yearsThat I moan away from thee!O again, again,In my katamaranA-keel would I pushTo your palmy door!Again would I hearThe heave and hushOf your song by the plantain-tree.But far awayDo I toil and crushThe hopes that ariseAt my sick heart's core.For never nearDoes it come, the dayThat draws me again to thee!

THE CITY

Soft and fair by the Desert's edge,And on the dim blue edge of the sea,Where white gulls wing all day and fledgeTheir young on the high cliff's sandy ledge,There is a city I have beheld,Sometime or where, by day or dream,I know not which, for it seems enspelledAs I am by its memory.Pale minarets of the Prophet pierceAbove it into the white of the skies,And sails enchanted a thousand yearsFlit at its feet while fancy steers.No face of all its faces to meIs known – no passion of it or pain.It is but a city by the sea,Enshrined forever beyond my eyes!

FULL TIDE

Sea-scents, wild-rose scents,Bay and barberry too,Drench the wind, the Maine wind,That gulls are dipping thro,With soft hints, sweet hints,With lull, lure and desire;With memory-wafts and mysteries,And all the ineffable historiesMade when the sea and land meet,And the sun lends nuptial fire.Sea-foam, and dream-foam,And which is which, who knows,When all day long the heart goes outTo every wave that blows,That blossoms on the bright tide,Then sheds a shimmering crestAnd yields its tossing place to oneWhose blooming is as quickly done —For beauty is ever swift – begotOf rapture and unrest.Sea-deeps, and soul-deeps,And where shall faith be foundIf not within the heart's beatOr in the surging soundOf the sea, which is the earth's heart,Beating with tireless might;Beating – tho but a tragedyLife seems on every land and sea;Beating to bring all breath, somehow,Out of despair's blight.

THE HERDING

Quietly, quietly in from the fieldsOf the grey Atlantic the billows come,Like sheep to the fold.Shorn by the rocks of fleecy foam,They sink on the brown seaweed at home;And a bell, like that of a bellwether,Is scarcely heard from the buoy —Save when they suddenly stumble together,In herded hurrying joy,Upon its guidance: then soft musicFrom it is tolled.Far out in the murk that follows them inIs heard the call of the fog-horn's voice,Like a shepherd's – low.And the strays as if waiting it seem to pauseAnd lift their heads and listen – becauseIt is sweet from wandering ways to be driven,When we have fearless breasts,When all that we strayed for has been given,When no want molestsUs more – no need of the tide's ebbingAnd tide's flow.

ON THE MAINE COAST

The rocks, lean fingers of the land,Reach out into the seaAnd cool themselves, all day long,In the tide drippingly.They catch the seaweed in themAnd the starfish on their tips,And gulls that lightAnd the swift flightOf swallows skimming grey and white —And spars of broken ships.The moon, God's perfect silver,With which He pays the worldFor toil and quest and day's unrest,Is washed on them and swirled.And avidly they seize it,Then let it slip away,Only againAnd yet againTo grasp at it – as eager menAt joy no hand can stay.

SEANCE

Hovering wings of ternsOver the rock-pools flutter,For the tide, ebbed far out,Seems to stumble and stutter;Seems like a spirit lost,Unable to come againBack to the wonted ways and daysOf ever-wanting men.And the moon, a mediumTrance-pale, is laying her lightOver its surge – till, lo,It turns from the deep and night.And the spirit-word it bringsIs the message of all time,That doubt is only the ebb of faith,Which ever reflows sublime!

A SIDMOUTH LAD

Salcombe Hill and four hills moreLie to leftward of this shore.On the right Peak Hill arisesEver rises, sickening, o'er.Two score rotting years I've seenSidmouth sit those hills between:Only Sidmouth – and twice overMust I bide it, as I've been.Then a churchyard hole for me,By the dull voice of the sea.Rotting, still in Sidmouth rotting,Rotting to eternity.

WIDOWED

One wild gull on a wilder storm,Winging to keep her lone heart warm.One wild gull by the surf – and I,Beaten by wind and rain and sky.One wild gull in the offing lost,Wilder heart in my bosom tost.One wild gull – O why but one!Two, dear God, should there be – or none!

TO THE SEA

Are you enraged, O sea, with the blue peaceOf heaven, so to uplift your armied waves,Your billowy rebellion against its ease,And with Tartarean mutter from cold caves,From shuddering profundities where shapesOf awe glide thro entangled leagues of ooze,To hoot your watery omens evermore,And evermore your moanings interfuseWith seething necromancy and mad lore?Or do you labour with the drifting bonesOf countless dead, O mighty Alchemist,Within whose stormy crucible the stonesOf sunk primordial shores, granite and schist,Are crumbled by your all-abrasive beat?With immemorial chanting to the moon,And cosmic incantation, do you craveRest to be found not till your wilds are strewnFrigid and desert over earth's last grave?You seem drunk with immensity, mad, blind —With raving deaf, with wandering forlorn,Parent of Demogorgon whose dire mindIs night and earthquake, shapeless shame and scornOf the o'ermounting birth of Harmony.Bound in your briny bed and gnawing earthWith foamy writhing and fierce-panted tides,You are as Fate in torment of a dearthOf black disaster and destruction's strides.And how you shatter silence from the world,Incarnate Motion of all mystery!Whose waves are fury-wings, whose winds are hurledWhither your Ghost tempestuous can seeA desolate apocalypse of death.Yea, how you shatter silence from the world,With emerald overflowing, waste on wasteOf flashing susurration, dashed and swirledOn isles and continents that shrink abased!And yet, O veering veil of the Unknown,Gathered from primal mist and firmament;O surging shape of Life's unfathomed moan,Whelming humanity with fears unmeant;Yet do I love you, far above all fear,And loving you unconquerably trustThe runes that from your ageless surfing startWould read, were they revealed, gust upon gust,That Immortality is might of heart!

SEA-MAD

(A Breton Maid)Three waves of the sea came up on the wind to me!One said:"Away! he is dead!Upon my foam I have flung his head!Go back to your cote, you never shall wed! —(Nor he!)"Three waves of the sea came up on the wind to me.Two brake.The third with a quakeCried loud, "O maid, I'll find for thy sakeHis dead lost body: prepare his wake!"(And back it plunged to the sea!)Three waves of the sea came up on the wind to me.One bore —And swept on the shore —His pale, pale face I shall kiss no more!Ah, woe to women death passes o'er!(Woe's me!)

THE ATHEIST

Over a scurf of rocks the tideWanders inward far and wide,Lifting the sea-weed's sloven hair,Filling the pools and foaming there,Sighing, sighing everywhere.Merged are the marshes, merged the sands,Save the dunes with pine-tree handsStretching upward toward the sky,Where the sun, their god, moves high:Would I too had a god – yea, I!For, the sea is to me but sea,And the sky but infinity.Tides and times are but some chanceBorn of a primal atom-dance.All is a mesh of Circumstance.In it there is no Heart – no Soul —No illimitable Goal —Only wild happenings, by wontMade into laws no might can shuntFrom the deep grooves in which they hunt.Wings of the gull I watch or clawsOf the cold crab whose strangeness awes:Faces of men that feel the forceOf a hid thing they call life's course:It is their hoping or remorse.Yet it may be that I have missedSomething that only they who tryst,Not with the sequence of eventsBut with their viewless Immanence,Find and acclaim with spirit-sense.

AT THE HELM

(Nova Scotia)Fog, and a wind that blows the seaBlindly into my eyes.And I know not if my soul shall beWhen the day dies.But if it be not and I loseAll that men live to gain —I who have known but heaving huesOf wind and rain —Still I shall envy no man's lot,For I have held this great,Never in whines to have forgotThat Fate is Fate.

IMPERTURBABLE

Three times the fog rolled in today, a silent shroud,From which the breakers ran like ghosts, moaning and tumbling.Three times a startled sea-bird cried aloud,On the wind stumbling.But I cast my net with never a fear, tho wraiths in meAnd birds of wild unrest were stirring and starting and crying.For I knew that under the sway of every seaThere is calm lying.

WASTE

I flung a wild rose into the sea,I know not why.For swinging there on a rathe rose-tree,By the scented bay and barberry,Its petals gave all their sweet to me,As I passed by.And yet I flung it into the tide,And went my way.I climbed the gray rocks, far and wide,And many a cove of peace I tried,With none of them all to be satisfied,The whole long day.For I had wasted a beautiful thing,Which might have wonEach passing heart to pause and sing,On the sea-path there, of its blossoming.And who wastes beauty shall feel want's sting,As I had done.

RESURGENCE

I was content, O Sea, to be free for a space from striving,Content as the brown weed is, at rest on rocks in the sun,When the salt tide is out, and the surf no more is rivingAt its roots, or swirling and bidding it sway where the white waves run.I was content – with life, and love, and a little over;A little achieved of the much that is given to men to do.But now with your tidal strife do you come again, vain rover,And tell of vastitudes, to be sailed, or sounded, anew.Now again do you surge. And the fathomless tides of thinking,Of wanting, waiting, despairing – or daring – with you come;The inner tides of the soul, that had ebbed with slumberous shrinking,But now are bursting again, thro the caves of it long numb.So vainly I lie on the cliff with the blissful Blue above meAnd listless sated gulls afloat below on the swells,For I am soothless, sateless, because of desires that shove meOut and away with the winds, on quests no distance quells!

LIFE'S ANSWER

A stroke of lightning stabbed the storm-black sea,As if it sought the heart of Life thereunder,And meant to put an end to it utterly; —Then came thunder —Wildly applauding thunder.Riven with fear the foam-crests ran before it,Hissed by the rain and beaten down to darkness.A gull rose out of the murk with wings that tore it —Life's answer to the storm's terrible starkness.

AS THE TIDE COMES IN

The quivering terns dart wild and dive,As the tide comes tumbling in.The calm rock-pools grow all alive,With the tide tumbling in.The crab who under the brown weed creeps,And the snail who lies in his house and sleeps,Awake and stir, as the plunging sweepsOf the tide come tumbling in.Gray driftwood swishes along the sand,As the tide comes tumbling in.With wreck and wrack from many a land,On the tide, tumbling in.About the beach are a broken spar,A pale anemone's torn sea-starAnd scattered scum of the waves' old war,As the tide tumbles in.And, oh, there is a stir at the heart of me,As the tide comes tumbling in.All life once more is a part of me,As the tide tumbles in.New hopes awaken beneath despairAnd thoughts slip free of the sloth of care,While beauty and love are everywhere —As the tide comes tumbling in.

SENSE-SWEETNESS

Flowers are dancing, waves playing, pines swaying, gulls are a-swarm;Sea and heather, sunning together, glad of the weather, with God are warm.Flowers are dancing, clouds winging, larks singing, summer abrew —Summer the old ecstatic passion of Life to fashion the world anew.

TIDALS

Low along the sea, low along the sea,The gray gulls are flying, and one sail swings;The tide is foaming in; the soft wind sighing;The brown kelp is stretching, to the surf, harp-strings.Low along the sea, low along the sea,The gray gulls are flying, and one sail fades;The tide is foaming out; the soft wind dying;And white stars are peeping from the night's pale shades.

A SAILOR'S WIFE

Into port when the sun was settingRode the ship that bore my love,Over the breakers wildly fretting,Under the skies above.Down to the beach I ran to meet him;He would come as he had said:And he came – in a sailor's coffin,Dead!..    .O the ships of the sea! the loversTorn by them apart!..The tide has nothing now to tell me,The breakers break my heart!

TO SEA!

Give me the tiller; up with the sail!Now let her swing to the breeze.Out to sea with a dripping rail,To sea, with a heart at ease!Out of the Harbour! out of the Bay!Out by the valiant Light,Out by rocks where the young gulls lay —And glad winds teach them flight!Out of the Harbour! out of the Bay!Out to the open sea!O there's not in the world a wayTo feel so wildly free!So, let her quiver! So, let her leap!So, let her dance the foam!All life else is a narrow keep,The sea alone is home!

GIVE OVER, O SEA!

Give over, O sea! You never shall reach Nirvana!Your tides, like the tidal generations, ever shall rise and fall,And your infinite waves find birth, rebirth, and billowy dissolution.The years of your existence are unending.The years of your unresting are forever.The sun, who is desire, ever begets in you his passion,And the moon is ever drawing you, with silvery soft alluring,To surge and sway, to wander and fret, to waste yourself in foam.So Buddha-calm shall never descend upon you.And tho it may often seem you have found the Way,Your tempest-sins return and quicken to wild reincarnations,And again great life, pulsing and perilous,Omnipotent life, that ever resurges thro the universe,Lashes you back to striving, back to yearning, back to speech.To utterance on all shores of the worldOf things unutterable.Give over then, you never shall reach Nirvana!Nor I, who am your acolyte for a moment;Who swing a censer of fragrant words before your priestly feet,That tread these altar-rocks, bedraped with weeds gently afloat,And with the wild flutter of gulls wildly mysterious.Give over and call your winds again to join you!O chanter of deep enchantments, of uncharted litanies,Call them and bid them say with you that life transcends retreat,And that, in the temple of its Immanence,There is no peace that does not spring daily from peacelessness,And no Nirvana save in the lee of storm.