The Sea called--I lay on the rocks and said:
“I am come.”
She mocked and showed her teeth,
Stretching out her long green arms.
“Go away!” she thundered.
“Then tell me what I am to do,” I begged.
“If I leave you, you will not be silent,
But cry my name in the cities
And wistfully entreat me in the plains and forests;
All else I forsake to come to you--what must I do?”
“Never have I uttered your name,” snarled the Sea.
“There is no more of me in your body
Than the little salt tears you are frightened of shedding.
What can you know of my love on your brown rock pillow....
Come closer.”
The gulls are mad-in-love with the river,
And the river unveils her face and smiles.
In her sleep-brooding eyes they mirror their shining wings.
She lies on silver pillows: the sun leans over her.
He warms and warms her, he kisses and kisses her.
There are sparks in her hair and she stirs in laughter.
Be careful, my beautiful waking one! you will catch on fire.
Wheeling and flying with the foam of the sea on their breasts,
The ineffable mists of the sea clinging to their wild wings,
Crying the rapture of the boundless ocean,
The gulls are mad-in-love with the river.
Wake! we are the dream thoughts flying from your heart.
Wake! we are the songs of desire flowing from your bosom.
These were the ragged peon crews,
Half-bloods of Aztec women,
Of Spaniards and adventurers
Who were not seeking heaven!
But out on the broad seas driven,
And from the Horn to Sitka,
They searched for deep-sea findings
The whole unknown way,
With "small ringing of bells
And no trumpet blare,
Empty stomachs, and empty guns,
But plenty of prayer."
And if they failed of the findings,
Nothing behind but the branding irons,
Or slavery in the mines.
Yet they sang
Then Almitra spoke again and said, And what of Marriage master?
And he answered saying:
You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
A line's a speech;
So here's a line
To say this pedlar's pack
Of mine
Is not a book--
But a journey thro'
Mountainy places,
Ever in view
Of the sea and the fields,
With the rough wind
Blowing over the leagues
Behind!
Crooked, crawling tide with long wet fingers
Clutching at the gritty beach in the roar and spurt of spray,
Tide of gales, drunken tide, lava-burst of breakers,
Black ships plunge upon you from sea to sea away.
Shattering tide, tide of winds, tide of the long still winter,
What matter though ships fail, men sink, there vanish glory?
War-clouds shall hurl their stinging sleet upon our last adventure,
Night-winds shall brokenly whisper our bitter, tragic story.
Its huge red prow
Uplifted in a tragic attitude,
It waits out there; the seas around
Bubble and hiss with moaning sound:
In sight of port at the gates of the sea,
It waits upreared expectantly.
It has known the joy of battle,
It has known the shock of wreck:
The spray coated its planking,
The sands swallow its deck:
Monument of the sea,
That knows and that forgets eternally.
It heaves its scarred brow towards the city:
The city pays it little heed:
Indifferent, brutal, without pity,
Stern cargo-steamers trudge and speed;
Silently fell
The snow on the waters
In the grey dusk
Of the winter evening:
Swirling and falling,
Sucked into the oily
Blue-black surface
Of the sea.
We pounded on slowly;
From our bows sheeted
A shuddering mass of heavy foam:
Night closed about us,
But ere we were darkened,
We saw close in
A great gaunt schooner
Beating to southward.
With heavy doleful clamour, hour on hour, and day on day,
The muddy groundswell lifts and breaks and falls and slides away.
The cold and naked wind runs shivering over the sands,
Salt are its eyes, open its mouth, its brow wet, blue its hands.
It finds naught but a starving gull whose wings trail at its side,
And the dull battered wreckage, grey jetsam of the tide.
The lifeless chilly slaty sky with no blue hope is lit,
A rusty waddling steamer plants a smudge of smoke on it.
Stupidly stand the factory chimneys staring over all,
The grey grows ever denser, and soon the night will fall:
The wind runs sobbing over the beach and touches with its hands
The sky immense, bejewelled with rain of stars,
Hangs over us:
The stars like a sudden explosion powder the zenith
With green and gold;
North-east, south-west the Milky Way's pale streamers
Flash past in flame;
The sky is a swirling cataract
Of fire, on high.
Over us the sky up to the zenith
Palpitates with tense glitter:
About our keel the foam bubbles and curdles
In phosphorescent joy.
Flame boils up to meet down-rushing flame
In the blue stillness.
Aloft a single orange meteor
Crashes down the sky.
Like black plunging dolphins with red bellies,
The steamers in herds
Swim through the choppy breakers
On this day of winds and clouds.
Wallowing and plunging,
They seek their path,
The smoke of their snorting
Hangs in the sky.
Like black plunging dolphins with red bellies,
The steamers pass,
Flapping their propellers
Salt with the spray.
Their iron sides glisten,
Their stays thrash:
Their funnels quiver
With the heat from beneath.
White stars scattering,
Pale rain of spray-drops,
Delicate flash of smoke wind-drifted low and high,
Silver upon dark purple,
The gulls quiver
In a noiseless flight, far out across the sky.