Devotion
The heart can think of no devotion
Greater than being shore to the ocean--
Holding the curve of one position,
Counting an endless repetition.
Poems on the topic: shore
Poems on the topic “shore” on Poets.by.
Failure
I would sing a song
but I have no words
I would hum a tune
but I have no melody
success
like grains of brown sand
at the sea-shore
slips through my nerveless fingers
the world
has not time
even to laugh.
Days on the Shore
Dragged up by the fury of storms,
Monstrous cadavers of cattle
Were still wide-eyed
As if begging heaven for a clemency
Which they were not again to see.
We set about prodding with our lances
—spikes of sugar cane—the drums of their bellies.
From the depths of the dead animals
Issued a great gust of happiness,
For we imagined that those corpses had come to realize,
At some moment during the deluge,
Amid the muddy and terrifying waters,
That there and only there was to be found freedom,
A roar of waste and silt-laden branches,
An avalanche of strange beasts
Which were never to tread
To a Child Dancing in the Wind
Dance there upon the shore;
What need have you to care
For wind or water's roar?
And tumble out your hair
That the salt drops have wet;
Being young you have not known
The fool's triumph, nor yet
Love lost as soon as won,
Nor the best labourer dead
And all the sheaves to bind.
What need have you to dread
The monstrous crying of wind?
Has no one said those daring
Kind eyes should be more learn'd?
Or warned you how despairing
The moths are when they are burned,
The Cornishman
At sunset, when the high sea span
About the rocks a web of foam,
I saw the ghost of a Cornishman
Come home.
I saw the ghost of a Cornishman
Run from the weariness of war,
I heard him laughing as he ran
Across his unforgotten shore.
The great cliff, gilded by the west,
Received him as an honoured guest.
The green sea, shining in the bay,
Did drown his dreadful yesterday.
Come home, come home, you million ghosts,
The honest years shall make amends,
The sun and moon shall be your hosts,
The everlasting hills your friends.
After Love
There is no magic when we meet,
We speak as other people do,
You work no miracle for me
Nor I for you.
You were the wind and I the sea--
There is no splendor any more,
I have grown listless as the pool
Beside the shore.
But tho' the pool is safe from storm
And from the tide has found surcease,
It grows more bitter than the sea,
For all its peace.
Land's End
The shores of the world are ours, the solitary
Beaches that bear no fruit, nor any flowers,
Only the harsh sea-grass that the wind harries
Hours on unbroken hours.
No one will envy us these empty reaches
At the world’s end, and none will care that we
Leave our lost footprints where the sand forever
Takes the unchanging passion of the sea.
Loneliness
Now it is Loneliness who comes at night
Instead of Sleep, to sit beside my bed.
Like a tired child I lie and wait her tread,
I watch her softly blowing out the light.
Motionless sitting, neither left nor right
She turns, and weary, weary droops her head.
She, too, is old; she, too, has fought the fight.
So, with the laurel she is garlanded.
Through the sad dark the slowly ebbing tide
Breaks on a barren shore, unsatisfied.
A strange wind flows ... then silence. I am fain
To turn to Loneliness, to take her hand,
Cling to her, waiting, till the barren land
Fills with the dreadful monotone of rain.
Stones
Small yellow stones
That, lifted, through my idle fingers fall
Leaving a score--
And these I toss between the parted lips
Of the lapping sea,
And the sea tosses again with millions more--
Yellow and white stones;
Then drawing back her snaky long waves all,
Leaves the stones
Yellow and white upon the sandy shore....
As they were bones
Yellow and white left on the silent shore
Of an unfoaming far unvisioned Sea.
The Shell
And then I pressed the shell
Close to my ear
And listened well,
And straightway like a bell
Came low and clear
The slow, sad murmur of far distant seas,
Whipped by an icy breeze
Upon a shore
Wind-swept and desolate.
It was a sunless strand that never bore
The footprint of a man,
Nor felt the weight
Since time began
Of any human quality or stir
Save what the dreary winds and waves incur.
And in the hush of waters was the sound
Love Songs 2
Your love is like a blue, blue wave
The little rainbows play in.
Your love is like a mountain cave
Cool shadows darkly stay in.
It thrills me like great gales at war,
It soothes like softest singing.
It bears me where clear rivers are,
With reeds and rushes swinging;
Or out to pearly shores afar
Where temple bells are ringing.
Moonrise
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.
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