THE hard sand breaks, and the grains of it are clear as wine. Far off over the leagues of it, the wind, playing on the wide shore, piles little ridges, and the great waves break over it. But more than the many-foamed ways of the sea, I know him of the triple path-ways, Hermes, who awaits. Dubious, facing three ways, welcoming wayfarers, he whom the sea-orchard shelters from the west, from the east weathers sea-wind; fronts the great dunes. Wind rushes over the dunes, and the coarse, salt-crusted grass answers. Heu, it whips round my ankles! II Small is this white stream, flowing below ground from the poplar-shaded hill, but the water is sweet. Apples on the small trees are hard, too small, too late ripened by a desperate sun that struggles through sea-mist. The boughs of the trees are twisted by many bafflings; twisted are the small-leafed boughs. But the shadow of them is not the shadow of the mast head nor of the torn sails. Hermes, Hermes, the great sea foamed, gnashed its teeth about me; but you have waited, were sea-grass tangles with shore-grass. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON A PORTRAIT OF WORDSWORTH BY B.R. HAYDON by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING COMIN' THRO' THE RYE by ROBERT BURNS BABY RUNNING BAREFOOT by DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE THE SHOEMAKERS by JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER WORLD-MILLER by FRANCES BARBER SONNET TO A FRIEND, ON HIS SECOND MARRIAGE by BERNARD BARTON |