 | The Creed of My Heart and Other Poems |  |
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THE SECRET OF THE SEA
I
Tell me, O Sea, thy secret; speak to me, soul to soul:I hear the boom of thy billows; I see them surge and roll:
There is something that they are saying as they break on the foaming beach;
Something that they would tell me if I could but learn their speech.
II
They come like a trampling army from some fateful far-off land:They storm with unwearied onsets the ramparts of rock and sand:
Wave after wave, they perish. Is their travail void and vain?
What realm do they strive to conquer? What crown do they strive to gain?
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III
Afar in the misty distance, where loom like ghostly shapes,Out of the clouds that haunt them, the giant headland capes,
As I trace the land's dim outline by the fringe of thy foaming snow,
I think, do the dark cliffs listen to the surf that breaks below?
IV
I have seen thee, O Sea, in summer, when thy waves were all asleep,And the blue of the sky above thee was matched by thine azure deep:
What spell had bound thy waters? What charm had hushed their strife?
What dream, what vision of glory, had tranced thy mighty life?
V
And in the wintry season, O dark tempestuous Sea!When storm-clouds hid the heavens, and the wild winds wandered free,—
I have seen thy terrible surges scourging the streaming reefs,
And caught in their echoed thunder the plaint of thy voiceless griefs.
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VI
On gusty days, far inland, borne by the rushing blast,The flakes of thy foam have met me, and kissed me as they passed:
And as I drank enraptured the breath of the spraying brine,
Thy mystic message thrilled me, but I could not make it mine.
VII
When the sun is slowly sinking, and the world grows wildly bright,And sea and sky are mingled in a mist of crimson light,
Vainly my soul has striven, through the gates of the glowing West,
To win the golden shore-line of thine ‘Islands of the Blest.’
VIII
Or when, full-orbed and lustrous, the moon is throned on high,And paths of gleaming silver across thy ripples lie,
Though soft as a dying zephyr the breeze of midnight blows,
More passionate far than passion is thy deep divine repose.
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IX
Oh, there's a life profounder than the life that we deem our own:There are words that are never spoken, and thoughts that are never known;
And secret gusts of passion, and wild far-wandering dreams;
And sudden spectral shadows, and swift mysterious gleams.
X
What do they mean? We know not. Why do they come and go?Where is the fount that feeds them? Whence do their storm-winds blow?
Vain thoughts! With cant and custom the world still walls us in;
And we may not guess what passes in the hidden depths within.
XI
Yet at times, for timeless moments, there come to all and eachFlashes of sudden splendour, yearnings that crave for speech:
But swift as the light that dazzles is its cruel dark eclipse;
And the soul's unspoken message dies on our faltering lips.
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XII
Dies! Will it ne'er be spoken? O vast encircling Sea!Thine is the voice eternal of the life that is dumb in me:
I hear in thy surging thunder the sound of my soul's unrest;
And thy fathomless depths of silence are the dream-deep life of my breast.
XIII
Murmur, O Sea, thy message; speak to me, deep to deep:We are swept by the same fierce passions; we sleep the same moonlit sleep:
For I think that thy restless waters through the gulfs of my life have rolled;
And I think that my heart has suffered whatever thy waves have told.
XIV
Speak to me, spirit to spirit: thou art more than symbol or sign;For thine are the very pulses of the life that is lost in mine:
From afar, from the soul's expanses, the winds have wafted thy breath;
And thy murmuring surges whisper of the infinite deeps of death.
| The Creed of My Heart and Other Poems | |