CAN it be women that walk in the sea-mist under the cliffs there? Where, 'neath a briny bow, creaming, advances the lip Of the foam, and out from the sand-choked anchors, on to the skiffs there, The long ropes swing through the surge, as it tumbles; and glitter, and drip. All the place in a lurid, glimmering, emerald glory, Glares like a Titan world come back under heaven again: Yonder, up there, are the steeps of the sea-kings, famous in story; But who are they on the beach? They are neither women, nor men. Who knows, are they the land's, or the water's, living creatures? Born of the boiling sea? nurst in the seething storms? With their woman's hair dishevelled over their stern male features, Striding, bare to the knee; magnified maritime forms! They may be the mothers and wives, they may be the sisters and daughters Of men on the dark mid-seas, alone in those black-coiled hulls, That toil 'neath you white cloud, whence the moon will rise o'er the waters To-night, with her face on fire, if the wind in the evening lulls. But they may be merely visions, such as only sick men witness (Sitting as I sit here, filled with a wild regret), Framed from the sea's misshapen spume with a horrible fitness To the winds in which they walk, and the surges by which they are wet: -- Salamanders, sea-wolves, witches, warlocks; marine monsters, Which the dying seaman beholds, when the rats are swimming away, And an Indian wind 'gins hiss from an unknown isle, and alone stirs The broken cloud which burns on the verge of the dead, red day, I know not. All in my mind is confused; nor can I dissever The mould of the visible world from the shape of my thoughts in me. The Inward and Outward are fused: and, through them, murmur forever The sorrow whose sound is the wind, and the roar of the limitless sea. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A MAN CHILD IS BORN (1839) by EDGAR LEE MASTERS TO THE LADIES by MARY LEE CHUDLEIGH THE MORNING-GLORY by MARIA WHITE LOWELL FRATERNITY by ANNE REEVE ALDRICH FAREWELL by GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE INTRODUCTORY AND VALEDICTORY by LEVI BISHOP |