Will you glimmer on the sea?
will you fling your spear-head
on the shore?
what note shall we pitch?
we have a song,
on the bank we share our arrows;
the loosed string tells our note:
O flight,
bring her swiftly to our song.
she is great,
we measure her by the pine trees.
The rain is falling steadily
Upon the thirsty earth,
While dry-eyed, I remain, and calm
Amid my own heart's dearth.
Break! break! ! ye flood-gates of my tears
All pent in agony,
Rain, rain! upon my scorching soul
And flood it as the sea! !
You cannot hurt me any more
For I am armored now
And I can look into your face
With cool, unfevered brow.
The tranquil river meets the sea,
My life flows on at rest,
Unurged, untorn, but oh, my God!
I love the old way best!
I do not ask for love, ah! no,
Nor friendship’s happiness,
These were relinquished long ago;
I search for something less.
I seek a little tranquil bark
In which to drift at ease
Awhile, and then quite silently
To sink in quiet seas.
Leave me alone a little !
Must I be yours,
When all my heart is pouring with the sea
Out to the moon's impersonal majesty?
Leave me alone ! My little vow endures
Men's irritating love, surviving yours!
Surviving all, surviving even you.
Leave me alone. This is no rendezvous :
I am not false except with my old sea and moon,
You understand me? Wait behind the dune?
Oh, level glow, oh, soft, soft-spoken sea —
Leave me alone. Why will you follow me !
I dreamed you were the sea ;
I dreamed you pounded
With foamy fists, the sad face of the shore.
Waking, I lay beneath you,
And the room resounded
With the hoarse fury of the mounting ocean's roar.
Swing, swing, and swoon,
Morning, evening, noon,
And with night, sleep.
If you must, weep —
But here, here with me.
Swing like the sea
Where waves are tall;
Torrents and the three
Tides fall. . . .
Let the end be
With the last sweep :
Swoon, swoon with me —
Then sleep.
These were his songs. Now he has broken them.
All he has made, that has he also slain :
Seeing my beauty budding, broke the stem ;
Finding his likeness here, where he has lain,
Finding the flame of his hurt spirit here
In this small pool that motioned with his shade,
Seeing himself, he smote me with his fear —
He only lives to break what he has made.
All, all he fathered, all that lived by him,
Shut from his face with banging of loud doors.
The sun, losing his spirit, now is gone dim ;
Only the sea that roared before, still roars.
Now it is time to go, softly away ;
We will grow fragile, songs, soon we will fade.
He has no place for us, we cannot stay —
He cannot bear the beauty he has made.
Put her away some place between two hills,
Away from the sea and the sun.
She has so much to think of — must she run
On your bright bosom always, Mother Earth ?
Put her away, and let some other birth
Bring her back to the sound of the sea, and the sun.
After she ponders under silent hills,
Beneath your swarming bosom, Mother Earth,
She will have words for her beloved one.
You are no more, but sunken in a sea
Sheer into dream, ten thousand leagues, you fell ;
And now you lie green-golden, while a bell
Swings with the tide, my heart : and all is well
Till I look down, and wavering, the spell —
Your loveliness — returns. There in the sea,
Where you lie amber-pale and coral-cool,
You are most loved, most lost, most beautiful.
I understand what you were running for,
Slim naked boy, and why from far inland
You came between dark hills. I know the roar
The sea makes in some ears. I understand.
I understand why you were running now
And how you heard the sea resound, and how
You leaped and left your valley for the long
Brown road. I understand the song
You chanted with your running, with your feet
Marking the measure of your high heart's beat.
Now you are broken. Seeing your wide brow
I see your dreams. I understand you now.
Since I have run like you, I understand
The throat's long wish, the breath that comes so quick,
The heart's light leap, the heels that drag so sick,
And warped heat wrinkles, lengthening the sand. . . .
I have moved west, I travel with the sun;
You cannot hold, you cannot hinder me.
There are no ends for what I have begun —
There are no resting places where I run,
Until I am surrendered to the sea.