The Sea

THE road leads to the land’s end
Where the sea spreads its hands
Over the beach. The sea
Spreads its fingers wistfully
To touch the dimpled sand.

I was young and rich with love,
And I lifted up my voice and sang;
But the sea heard me not.
Come away there is madness
Thinking too long on one thing.

The sea is blind,
But its hands are everywhere;
Its mystery is space;
Its strength is unsatisfied;
Its loneliness is terrible with beauty.

There are mornings
When the ocean is bright with vision,
Like the radiance of love
Upon a sightless face.
There are evenings when the waves whisper
And grope about the beach.

There are hours of fury
Lashed into walls of water,
And gray days of sullen waiting.

I was old and sick with grief
For man, and behold the sea
Floated a man before me.
His head was crowned with a
Crown of trailing sea-weed;
And his face was white
As the shivering wave;
And his hands were clenched
As though he had run a long race,
But the sea had taken his eyes.

I saw the ocean marvelously bright;
I saw sails upon the water
Like the great wings of fate,
And I heard a voice like the echo
Of a wave.

The ships shall ride the morning of fire,
They shall linger through the evening of despair,
They shall make port on some dark night,
And never know the hour of death:
They shall sail on for ever and ever.