The Finding of The Book and Other Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

An ocean child lived on a northern strand
In a hut—bent-thatch'd, blown around with foam;
One found and bore him to a lovely home,
Folded in a sweet valley far inland.
The boy's heart pointed seaward, as a wand
Points to hid fountains. Once he chanc'd to roam
Till he clomb upward to a mountain dome:
Far off he saw a blue speck tremulous spann'd
By azure sky. ‘The sea, the sea!’ he cried,
Weeping; for sorely he had missed the dawn,
The movement and the music of the sea.
Who loves it once in love for aye shall be
With the victorious sweetness of the tide,
Its long, strange, sweet sighs slowly backward drawn.

St. Augustine's doctrine in his various writings on Grace. See also Fénelon's ‘Lettres,’ especially those which close the second volume of the Œuvres Spirituelles.