I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea’s face and a grey dawn breaking.
I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.
I must go down to the seas again to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like
a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.
John Masefield
(1878–1967)
The wind’s way in the deep sky’s hollow
None may measure, as none can say
How the heart in her shows the swallow
The wind’s way.
Hope nor fear can avail to stay
Waves that whiten on wrecks that wallow,
Times and seasons that wane and slay.
Life and love, till the strong night swallow
Thought and hope and the red last ray,
Swim the waters of years that follow
The wind’s way.
Algernon Charles Swinburne
(1837–1909)
I
The morning is ten thousand miles away.
The winter night surrounds me, vast and cold,
Without a star. The voiceless fog is rolled
From ocean-levels desolate and grey;
But over all the floods of moonlight lay
A glory on those billows that enfold
The muffled sea and forest. Gaunt and old,
The dripping redwoods wait the distant day.
Unknown, above, what silver-dripping waves
Break slowly on the purple reefs of night!
What radiant foam ascends from shadowy bars,
Or sinks unechoing to soundless caves!
No whisper is upon those tides of light,
Setting in silence toward the risen stars.
II
O phantom sea, pale spirit of unrest!
There is no thunder where your billows break.
Morning shall be your strand; your waters make
An island of the mountain-top, whose crest
Is lonely on the ocean of your breast.
No sail is there save what our visions take
Of mist and moonlight, on whose ghostly wake
Our dreams go forth unuttered to the West.
The splendour on your tides is high and far,
Seen by the mind alone, whose wings can sweep
On wilder glories and a vaster deep.
Chill are your gulfs, O sea without a song!
Hiding the heavens from man, man from the star,
To which your parent sea endures as long.
George Sterling
(1869–1926)
Never weather-beaten sail more willing bent to shore,
Never tirèd pilgrim’s limbs affected slumber more,
Than my wearied sprite now longs to fly out of my troubled breast:
O come quickly, sweetest Lord, and take my soul to rest!
Ever blooming are the joys of heaven’s high Paradise,
Cold age deafs not there our ears nor vapour dims our eyes:
Glory there the sun outshines; whose beams the Blessèd only see:
O come quickly, glorious Lord, and raise my sprite to Thee!
Thomas Campion
(1567–1620)
With what deep calm, and passionlessly great,
Thy central soul is stored, the Equinox
Roars, and the North Wind drives ashore his flocks,
Thou heedest not, thou dost not feel the weight
Of the Leviathan, the ships in state
Plough on, and hull with hull in battle shocks,
Unshaken thou; the trembling planet rocks,
Yet thy deep heart will scarcely palpitate.
Peace-girdle of the world, thy face is moved,
And now thy furrowed brow with fierce light gleams,
Now laughter ripples forth a thousand miles,
But still the calm of thine abysmal streams
Flows round the people of our fretful isles,
And Earth’s inconstant fever is reproved.
H.D. Rawnsley
(1851–1920)
From my window I can see,
Where the sandhills dip,
One far glimpse of open sea.
Just a slender slip
Curving like a crescent moon—
Yet a greater prize
Than the harbour garden-fair
Spread beneath my eyes.
Just below me swings the bay,
Sings a sunny tune,
But my heart is far away
Out beyond the dune;
Clearer far the sea-gulls’ cry
And the breakers’ roar,
Than the little waves beneath
Lapping on the shore.
For that strip of sapphire sea
Set against the sky
Far horizons means to me—
And the ships go by
Framed between the empty sky
And the yellow sands,
While my freed thoughts follow them
Out to other lands.
I have seen it shine
Like a jewel polished well,
Hard and clear and fine;
Then soft lilac—and again
On another day
Glimpsed it through a veil of rain,
Shifting, drifting grey.
When the livid waters flee,
Flinching from the storm,
From my window I can see,
Standing safe and warm,
How the white foam tosses high
On the naked shore,
And the breakers’ thunder grows
To a battle-roar …
Far and far I look—Ten miles?
No, for yesterday
Sure I saw the Blessed Isles
Twenty worlds away.
My blue moon of open sea,
Is it little worth?
At the least it gives to me
Keys of all the earth!
Dorothea Mackellar
(1885–1968)
All dripping in tangles green,
Cast up by a lonely sea,
If purer for that, O Weed,
Bitterer, too, are ye?
Herman Melville
(1819–1891)
Within the world a second world
That circles ceaselessly:
Stars in the sky and sister stars—
Turn in your eyes and see!
Tides of the sea that rise and fall
Aheave from Pole to Pole—
And kindred swayings, veiled but felt,
That noise along the soul.
You moon, noon-rich, high-throned, remote,
And pale with pride extreme,
Draws up the sea, but what white moon
Exalts the tide of Dream?
The Fisher-Folk who cast their nets
In vision’s golden tide
Oft brings to light misshapen shells,
And nothing worth beside.
And so their worn hands droop adown,
Their singing throats are dumb;
The Inner-Deep withholds its pearls
Till turn of tide be come.
But patience! wait—the good tide turns,
The water’s inward set;
And lo, behold! aleap, alive
With glowing fish the net!
O Toilers of the Hidden Seas!
Ye have strange gain and loss,
Dragging the Deeps of Soul for pearls,
And oftimes netting dross.
Flushed to the lips with golden light,
And dark with sable gloom;
Thrilled by a thousand melodies,
And silent like a tomb.
Fierce are the winds across your realm,
As though some Demon veiled
Had loosed the gales of Spirit-land
To ravage ways unsailed.
But still sweet hours befall at times,
Rich-lit and full of ease;
The afterglow is like the light
Of sunset on tired seas.
And worse, perhaps, may be the lot
Of those whose fate is sleep;
The sodden souls without a tide,
Dense as a rotten deep.
Pain paves the way for keener joy,
And wondrous thoughts uproll
When the large moon of Peace looks down
On high tide in the soul.
Roderic Quinn
(1867–1949)
Along the serried coast the Southerly raves,
Grey birds scream landward through the distance hoar,
And, swinging from the dim confounded shore,
The everlasting boom of broken waves.
Like muffled thunder rolls about the graves
Of all the wonder-lands and lives of yore,
Whose bones asunder bleach for evermore,
In sobbing chasms and under choking caves.
O breaking heart—whose only rest is rage,
White tossing arms, and lips that kiss and part
In lonely dreams of love’s wild ecstasy.
Not the mean earth thy suffering can assuage
Nor highest heaven fulfill thy hungry heart,
O fair full-bosomed passionate weeping sea.
Dowell O’Reilly
(1865–1923)
