Ninety
Know the meaning of
the dory-boatmens'
daily beaching
at full throttle,
risking all between
two waves.
Poems on the topic: wave
Poems on the topic “wave” on Poets.by.
Eleven
I walk on sand
and think to join
the gulls. We'll seek
a route across waves,
leaving behind
so many troubles.
The dory-boatmen
launch through surf,
eyes picking their way
through rocks ahead.
Love and the Muse
My back is turned on Spring and all her flowers,
The birds no longer charm from tree to tree;
The cuckoo had his home in this green world
Ten days before his voice was heard by me.
Had I an answer from a dear one's lips,
My love of life would soon regain its power;
And suckle my sweet dreams, that tug my heart,
And whimper to be nourished every hour.
Give me that answer now, and then my Muse,
That for my sweet life's sake must never die,
Will rise like that great wave that leaps and hangs
The sea-weed on a vessel's mast-top high.
Immortal
So soon my body will have gone
Beyond the sound and sight of men,
And tho' it wakes and suffers now,
Its sleep will be unbroken then;
But oh, my frail immortal soul
That will not sleep forevermore,
A leaf borne onward by the blast,
A wave that never finds the shore.
Sea Longing
A THOUSAND miles beyond this sun-steeped wall
Somewhere the waves creep cool along the sand,
The ebbing tide forsakes the listless land
With the old murmur, long and musical;
The windy waves mount up and curve and fall,
And round the rocks the foam blows up like snow,--
Tho' I am inland far, I hear and know,
For I was born the sea's eternal thrall.
I would that I were there and over me
The cold insistence of the tide would roll,
Quenching this burning thing men call the soul,--
Then with the ebbing I should drift and be
Less than the smallest shell along the shoal,
Less than the sea-gulls calling to the sea.
Tides
Love in my heart was a fresh tide flowing
Where the starlike sea gulls soar;
The sun was keen and the foam was blowing
High on the rocky shore.
But now in the dusk the tide is turning,
Lower the sea gulls soar,
And the waves that rose in resistless yearning
Are broken forevermore.
"I Thought of You"
I thought of you and how you love this beauty,
And walking up the long beach all alone
I heard the waves breaking in measured thunder
As you and I once heard their monotone.
Around me were the echoing dunes, beyond me
The cold and sparkling silver of the sea--
We two will pass through death and ages lengthen
Before you hear that sound again with me.
The Unchanging
Sun-swept beaches with a light wind blowing
From the immense blue circle of the sea,
And the soft thunder where long waves whiten--
These were the same for Sappho as for me.
Two thousand years--much has gone by forever,
Change takes the gods and ships and speech of men--
But here on the beaches that time passes over
The heart aches now as then.
The Secret
In the profoundest ocean
There is a rainbow shell,
It is always there, shining most stilly
Under the greatest storm waves
And under the happy little waves
That the old Greek called ‘ripples of laughter.’
And you listen, the rainbow shell
Sings--in the profoundest ocean.
It is always there, singing most silently!
The Tide
The tide makes music
At the foot of the beach;
The waves sing together
Rumble of breakers.
Ships there are swaying,
Into the distance,
Thrum of the cordage,
Slap of the sails.
The tide makes music
At the foot of the beach;
Low notes of an organ
'Gainst the dull clang of bells.
The tide's tense purple
On the untrodden sand:
Its throat is blue,
Its hands are gold.
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.
Sea Iris
Weed, moss-weed,
root tangled in sand,
sea-iris, brittle flower,
one petal like a shell
is broken,
and you print a shadow
like a thin twig.
Fortunate one,
scented and stinging,
rigid myrrh-bud,
camphor-flower,
sweet and salt--you are wind
in our nostrils.
Do the murex-fishers
drench you as they pass?
Do your roots drag up colour
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