Part 6

But when I lie and dream of that which was Before the first man’s shadow flitted on the grass, I am stricken dumb With sense of that to come.

Is then this wildering sea-song but a part Of the old song of the mystery of the years-- Or only the echo of the tired heart And of tears?

_Fiona Macleod_

_Gray Rocks and Grayer Sea_

Gray rocks, and grayer sea, And surf along the shore-- And in my heart a name My lips shall speak no more.

The high and lonely hills Endure the darkening year-- And in my heart endure A memory and a tear.

Across the tide a sail That tosses, and is gone-- And in my heart the kiss That longing dreams upon.

Gray rocks, and grayer sea, And surf along the shore-- And in my heart the face That I shall see no more.

_Charles G. D. Roberts_

_The Sea_

The Sea! the Sea! the open Sea! The blue, the fresh, the ever free! Without a mark, without a bound, It runneth the earth’s wide regions round; It plays with the clouds; it mocks the skies; Or like a cradled creature lies.

I’m on the Sea! I’m on the Sea! I am where I would ever be; With the blue above, and the blue below, And silence wheresoe’er I go; If a storm should come and awake the deep, What matter? I shall ride and sleep.

I love (oh! how I love) to ride On the fierce foaming bursting tide, When every mad wave drowns the moon, Or whistles aloft his tempest tune, And tells how goeth the world below, And why the south-west blasts do blow.

I never was on the dull tame shore, But I lov’d the great Sea more and more, And backward flew to her billowy breast, Like a bird that seeketh its mother’s nest; And a mother she was, and is to me; For I was born on the open Sea.

The waves were white, and red the morn, In the noisy hour when I was born; And the whale it whistled, the porpoise rolled, And the dolphins bared their backs of gold; And never was heard such an outcry wild As welcomed to life the Ocean-child!

I’ve lived since then, in calm and strife, Full fifty summers a sailor’s life, With wealth to spend and a power to range, But never have sought, nor sighed for change; And Death, whenever he come to me, Shall come on the wide unbounded Sea!

_Bryan Waller Procter_

_The Sea Road_

Oh, green curved the hill road and beckoned to my feet, Where the breath of the uplands came drifting fitful-sweet. Moon mist, and cloud mist, and meadows drenched with dew, Fir breath, and fern breath, and hill-winds stealing through To stir the vagrant poppy-blooms that gipsy through the wheat.

But nearer and clearer than these there called to me A little, waiting, dune-set road that comrades with the sea.

Oh, bright shone the plains’ road in ribbonings of gold, Past lowly cottage casements tucked beneath a green hill’s fold. Peat smoke, and hearth smoke, and toiler’s wayside fire, Wife love, and child’s love, and humble hearts’ desire, Peace and fireside plenty was the tale its windings told.

Yet nearer and clearer than these there called to me A small road, dark with juniper, and open to the sea.

A little, watchful, sea-wife road unmindful of the gales, All kirtled blue with sunlit waves, and coiffed with speeding sails. Far sail, and near sail, the beating sea-gulls’ wings, Far lands, the near lands, the lullaby she sings, All the ports of all the world are in her whispered tales.

Ah, nearer and dearer than all there cries to me, One little, crooning, sunset road set shoulder to the sea.

_Martha Haskell Clarke_

_The Sea_[3]

I

Interminable, not to be divined, The ocean’s solemn distances recede; A gospel of glad color to the mind, But for the soul a voice of sterner creed. The sadness of unfathomable things Calls from the waste and makes the heart give heed With answering dirges, as a seashell sings.

II

Mother of infinite loss! Mother bereft! Thou of the shaken hair! Far-questing Sea! Sea of the lapsing wail of waves! O left Of many lovers! Lone, lamenting Sea! Desolate, prone, disheveled, lost, sublime! Unquelled and reckless! Mad, despairing Sea! Wail, for I wait--wail, ancient dirge of Time!

III

Stretch wide, O marshes, in your golden joy! Stretch ample, marshes, in serene delight! Proclaiming faith past tempest to destroy, With silent confidence of conscious might! Glad of the blue sky, knowing nor wind nor rain Can do your large indifference despite, Nor lightning mar your tolerant disdain!

IV

The fanfare of the trumpets of the sea Assaults the air with jubilant foray; The intolerable exigence of glee Shouts to the sun and leaps in radiant spray; The laughter of the breakers on the shore Shakes like the mirth of Titans heard at play, With thunders of tumultuous uproar.

V

Playmate of terrors! Intimate of Doom! Fellow of Fate and Death! Exultant Sea! Thou strong companion of the Sun, make room! Let me make one with you, rough comrade Sea! Sea of the boisterous sport of wind and spray! Sea of the lion mirth! Sonorous Sea! I hear thy shout, I know what thou wouldst say.

VI

Dauntless, triumphant, reckless of alarms, O Queen that laughest Time and Fear to scorn, Death, like a bridegroom, tosses in thine arms. The rapture of your fellowship is borne Like music on the wind. I hear the blare, The calling of the undesisting horn, And tremors as of trumpets on the air.

_Richard Hovey_

[3] Extracts from “Seaward,” an Elegy.

_The World is Too Much With Us_

The World is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon, The winds that will be howling at all hours And are up-gather’d now like sleeping flowers, For this, for every thing, we are out of tune;

It moves us not.--Great God! I’d rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn,-- So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

_William Wordsworth_

_Sunrise_

Day! Faster and more fast, O’er night’s brim, day boils at last: Boils, pure gold, o’er the cloud-cup’s brim Where spurting and suppressed it lay, For not a froth-flake touched the rim Of yonder gap in the solid gray Of the eastern cloud, an hour away; But forth one wavelet, then another, curled, Till the whole sunrise, not to be suppressed, Rose, reddened, and its seething breast Flickered in bounds, grew gold, then overflowed the world.

_Robert Browning_

_Song of the Sea_

The song of the sea was an ancient song In the days when the earth was young; The waves were gossiping loud and long Ere mortals had found a tongue; The heart of the waves with wrath was wrung Or soothed to a siren strain, As they tossed the primitive isles among Or slept in the open main. Such was the song and its changes free, Such was the song of the sea.

The song of the sea took a human tone In the days of the coming of man; A mournfuller meaning swelled her moan, And fiercer her riots ran; Because that her stately voice began To speak of our human woes; With music mighty to grasp and span Life’s tale and its passion-throes. Such was the song as it grew to be, Such was the song of the sea.

The song of the sea was a hungry sound As the human years unrolled; For the notes were hoarse with the doomed and drowned, Or choked with a shipwreck’s gold; Till it seemed no dirge above the mould So sorry a story said As the midnight cry of the waters old Calling above their dead. Such is the song and its threnody, Such is the song of the sea.

The song of the sea is a wondrous lay, For it mirrors human life; It is grave and great as the judgment day, It is torn with the thought of strife; Yet under the stars it is smooth and rife With love-lights everywhere, When the sky has taken the deep to wife And their wedding-day is fair-- Such is the ocean’s mystery, Such is the song of the sea.

_Richard Burton_

_Farewell_

Not soon shall I forget--a sheet Of golden water, cold and sweet, The young moon with her head in veils Of silver, and the nightingales.

A wain of hay came up the lane-- O fields I shall not walk again, And trees I shall not see, so still Against a sky of daffodil!

Fields where my happy heart had rest, And where my heart was heaviest, I shall remember them at peace Drenched in moon-silver like a fleece.

The golden water sweet and cold, The moon of silver and of gold, The dew upon the gray grass-spears, I shall remember them with tears.

_Katherine Tynan_

_The Return_

I will go back to the great sweet mother, Mother and lover of men, the sea. I will go down to her, I and none other, Close with her, kiss her, and mix her with me; Cling to her, strive with her, hold her fast; O fair white mother, in days long past Born without sister, born without brother, Set free my soul as thy soul is free.

O fair green-girdled mother of mine, Sea, that art clothed with the sun and the rain, Thy sweet hard kisses are strong like wine, Thy large embraces are keen like pain. Save me and hide me with all thy waves, Find me one grave of thy thousand graves, Those pure cold populous graves of thine, Wrought without hand in a world without stain.

I shall sleep, and move with the moving ships, Change as the winds change, veer in the tide; My lips will feast on the foam of thy lips, I shall rise with thy rising, with thee subside; Sleep, and not know if she be, if she were, Filled full with life to the eyes and hair, As a rose is fulfilled to the roseleaf tips With splendid summer and perfume and pride.

This woven raiment of nights and days, Were it once cast off and unwound from me, Naked and glad would I walk in thy ways, Alive and aware of thy ways and thee; Clear of the whole world, hidden at home, Clothed with the green and crowned with the foam, A pulse of the life of thy straits and bays, A vein in the heart of the streams of the sea.

Fair mother, fed with the lives of men, Thou art subtle and cruel of heart, men say Thou hast taken, and shalt not render again; Thou art full of thy dead, and cold as they. But death is the worst that comes of thee; Thou art fed with our dead, O mother, O sea, But when hast thou fed on our hearts? or when, Having given us love, hast thou taken away?

O tender-hearted, O perfect lover, Thy lips are bitter, and sweet thine heart. Thy hopes that hurt and the dreams that hover, Shall they not vanish away and apart? But thou, thou art sure, thou art older than earth; Thou art strong for death and fruitful of birth; Thy depths conceal and thy gulfs discover; From the first thou wert, from the end thou art.

_Algernon Charles Swinburne_

_The Port o’ Heart’s Desire_

Down around the quay they lie, the ships that sail to sea, On shore the brown-cheeked sailormen they pass the jest with me, But soon their ships will sail away with winds that never tire, And there’s one that will be sailing to the Port o’ Heart’s Desire.

The Port o’ Heart’s Desire, and it’s, oh, that port for me, And that’s the ship that I love best of all that sail the sea; Its hold is filled with memories, its prow it points away To the Port o’ Heart’s Desire, where I roamed a boy at play.

Ships that sail for gold there be, and ships that sail for fame, And some were filled with jewels bright when from Cathay they came, But give me still yon white sail in the sunset’s mystic fire, That the running tides will carry to the Port o’ Heart’s Desire.

It’s you may have the gold and fame, and all the jewels, too, And all the ships, if they were mine, I’d gladly give to you, I’d give them all right gladly, with their gold and fame entire, If you would set me down within the Port o’ Heart’s Desire.

Oh, speed you, white-winged ship of mine, oh, speed you to the sea, Some other day, some other tide, come back again for me; Come back with all the memories, the joys and e’en the pain, And take me to the golden hills of boyhood once again.

_John S. McGroarty_

_Sea-Urge_

Oh, to feel the tremble of a ship beneath my feet again, Now that April’s urge is running riot in the tide, Where gray gull dips to white gull and the salt spray leaps to meet them Out across blue water where the tall ships ride.

Freshets in the mountain streams and floods along the river Go rushing down to join the tossing tumult of the sea. And the April urge that drives them sets the sailor’s heart aquiver With the joy of ocean madness when the sails flap free.

_Unknown_

_The Ocean_

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: I love not man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean--roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin--his control Stops with the shore;--upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man’s ravage, save his own, When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depth with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.

His steps are not upon thy paths,--thy fields Are not a spoil for him,--thou dost arise And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields For earth’s destruction thou dost all despise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send’st him, shivering in thy playful spray, And howling, to his Gods, where haply lies His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth:--there let him lay.

* * * * *

Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty’s form Glasses itself in tempests; in all time, Calm or convulsed--in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime Dark-heaving;--boundless, endless, and sublime-- The image of Eternity--the throne Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.

And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy I wantoned with thy breakers--they to me Were a delight; and if the freshening sea Made them a terror--’twas a pleasing fear, For I was, as it were, a child of thee, And trusted to thy billows far and near, And laid my hand upon thy mane--as I do here.

_Lord Byron_

_A Song of Desire_

Thou dreamer with the million moods, Of restless heart like me, Lay thy white hands against my breast And cool its pain, O Sea!

O wanderer of the unseen paths, Restless of heart as I, Blow hither, from thy caves of blue, Wind of the healing sky!

O treader of the fiery way, With passionate heart like mine, Hold to my lips thy healthful cup Brimmed with its blood-red wine!

O countless watchers of the night, Of sleepless heart like me, Pour your white beauty in my soul, Till I grow calm as ye!

O Sea, O Sun, O Wind and Stars, (O hungry heart that longs!) Feed my starved lips with life, with love, And touch my tongue with songs!

_Frederic Lawrence Knowles_

_A Sea Change_

Heavy with unshed tears--weary with pain, At last life brought me to the sea again, Where beauty spoke above my grief’s demands. I heard the singing surf--watched sea-birds fly; I saw a pine-tree etched against the sky, And crushed the bay-leaves in my tired hands.

Loveliness filled my spirit like a cup: A sense of healing and of peace welled up Which but the sea to the sea-lover brings. I did not hope; I did not even pray; But as upon that sun-warmed rock I lay Joy stirred within me with a lift of wings.

_Dorothy Peace_

_Twilight At Sea_

The twilight hours, like birds, flew by, As lightly and as free, Ten thousand stars were in the sky, Ten thousand on the sea; For every wave, with dimpled face, That leaped upon the air, Had caught a star in its embrace, And held it trembling there.

_Amelia C. Welby_

_Sea-Song_

To-day was a sea-gull day, dear heart, to-day was a sea-gull day, With a touch of wind, and the beat of surf, and the breath of the driven spray Blue of the sky, and blue of the sea, and the white clouds scudding far, And my longings swept to the sky-line dim like moths to a candle star.

To-day was a sea-gull day, dear heart, that sparkled with sun-flecked blue, But it bound my heart with a wave-linked chain and bore it away from you. It stole it far from my hearth and you, though we two sat side by side, For my heart it tugged like an anchored ship that strains with the seaward tide.

And when we wandered back home, dear heart, so soberly wandered home, My eyes were blind with the sun-washed gold, and dim with the lunging foam, And my heart came swaggering on beside, from the wake of the distant ships, With the lilt of a deep sea chanty-strain like wine on its reckless lips!

_Martha Haskell Clark_

_Deep Down_

The lights are on the harbor, And the ships at anchor ride-- Blow she high, blow she low, let’er blow! We’re outward bound at dawning With the turning of the tide, And Davy Jones is waiting down below, Old Davy Jones is watching down below, below, below, Down deep, deep down, down below.

Now, here’s to hearty weather, And here’s to starry skies-- Up she goes, down she goes, bullies, Oh! And here’s to all the ladies, And damn old Davy’s eyes, Long may we keep him waiting down below! Old thieving, crimping Davy, down below, below, below, Down deep, deep down, down below.

At Rio, Hull or Sidney, I’ll meet you all again, So here’s good luck, my bullies, ere we go, Or I’ll find a berth ’longside you In the port o’ missing men, Where Davy Jones is waiting down below, Where Davy Jones is watching down below, below, below, Down deep, deep down, down below.

_James Stuart Montgomery_

_The Winds of Heaven_

“_Life is sweet, brother._”

“_Do you think so?_”

“_Think so? There’s Night and Day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon and stars, brother, all sweet things; There’s likewise a wind on the heath._

_Life is very sweet brother._”

GEORGE BORROW

_Do You Fear the Wind?_

Do you fear the force of the wind, The slash of the rain? Go face them and fight them, Be savage again. Go hungry and cold like the wolf, Go wade like the crane: The palms of your hands will thicken, The skin of your cheeks will tan, You’ll grow ragged and weary and swarthy, But you’ll walk like a man!

_Hamlin Garland_

_Hark to the Shouting Wind_

Hark to the shouting Wind! Hark to the flying Rain! And I care not though I never see A bright blue sky again.

There are thoughts in my breast to-day That are not for human speech; But I hear them in the driving storm, And the roar upon the beach.

And oh, to be with that ship That I watched through the blinding brine! O Wind! for thy sweepy land and sea! O Sea! for a voice like thine!

Shout on, thou pitiless Wind, To the frightened and flying Rain! I care not though I never see A calm blue sky again.

_Henry Timrod_

_Who Has Seen the Wind?_

Who has seen the wind? Neither I nor you: But when the leaves hang trembling, The wind is passing thro’.

Who has seen the wind? Neither you nor I: But when the trees bow down their heads, The wind is passing by.

_Christina Rossetti_

_Wind_

Wind, wind--heather gipsy Whistling in my tree! All the heart of me is tipsy On the sound of thee. Sweet with scent of clover, Salt with breath of sea, Wind, wind--wayman lover, Whistling in my tree!

_John Galsworthy_

_The Sea-Wind_

Winnow me through with thy keen clear breath, Wind with the tang of the sea! Speed through the closing gates of day, Find me, and fold me, and have thy way, And take thy will of me!

Use my soul as you use the sky,-- Gray sky of this sullen day! Clear its doubt as you speed its wrack Of storm-clouds burning its splendor back, Giving it gold for gray!

Bring me word of the moving ships, Halyards and straining spars; Come to me clear from the sea’s wide breast While the last lights die in the yellow west Under the first white stars!

Batter the closed doors of my heart And set my spirit free! For I stifle here in this crowded place Sick for the tenantless fields of space, Wind with the tang of the sea!

_Arthur Ketchum_

_I Meant to Do My Work Today_

I meant to do my work to-day-- But a brown bird sang in the apple-tree And a butterfly flitted across the field, And all the leaves were calling me.

And the wind went sighing over the land, Tossing the grasses to and fro, And a rainbow held out its shining hand-- So what could I do but laugh and go?

_Richard Le Gallienne_

_That Wind Is Best_

Whichever way the wind doth blow Some heart is glad to have it so; Then blow it east or blow it west, The wind that blows, that wind is best.

Then, whatsoever wind doth blow, My heart is glad to have it so; And blow it east or blow it west, The wind that blows, that wind is best.

_Caroline Atherton Mason_

_Happy Wind_

Oh, happy wind, how sweet Thy life must be! The great, proud fields of gold Run after thee: And here are flowers, with heads To nod and shake; And dreaming butterflies To tease and wake. Oh, happy wind, I say, To be alive this day.

_William H. Davies_

_Wind-Litany_

In this world I shall not find Any Comforter like Wind, Any friend to so endure, Any love so strong, so sure. I was born when Wind with Star Linked its magic, and from far Whispered out my destiny-- And the Winds have brothered me.

Strong young hill-winds roistering Up the steep with me and Spring, Wild wet thrilling ocean-gales Flinging out my swelling sails, Or the little dawning-airs Rising pure as baby-prayers-- These have loved me since my birth On the wind-swept swinging earth.

Rose-perfumed night-air that slips Like a kiss across my lips, Smoke-tanged wood-breath--they can sweep All old childhood from its sleep Underneath thick-fallen days Heaped and dun across my ways; For until the end shall be, Scent o’ wind is Memory.