O SEA, with white lines of foam caught by the winter sun, O pale blue transparent sky with wind, long stretches of coast faint-outlined, and waving grasses! How often to seek you, out of the pent life of custom and brick perspective, a boy I came, Filled with vague desires, hardly knowing what or wherefore—like thine, O restless sea and ceaseless blowing wind— Came to pour forth my soul to yours, ye beautiful creatures—sad, sad, longing yearning without end! Say, great sea—whose music continues to-day the same as then; O wonderful illimitable sky, the same; O grasses shivering just for all the world as now— Say, have you not given me, by strange ways, the thing that I sought? For now returning, Satisfied, filled to the full of all desires, grateful as a lake sparkling in the sunshine, Filled to the full, desiring yearning no more—faint only with joy and the fragrance of the love which distils from you— Upon you I look once more. Changed are your words; changed are your words O grasses and pale blue flowing winds, and yours ye streets and faces that pass along them! Changed are your words to me. I heard you—but it was as one that hears an unknown tongue; I thought I saw you, but I see that you deceived me. And now I do not know why I should ever make another move—what you say has entirely checkmated me. But to those that go forward, go ye ever forward before them; and to them that listen let your strange vocabulary continue. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AT LORD'S [CRICKET GROUND] by FRANCIS THOMPSON ODE TO LUDLOW CASTLE by LUCY AIKEN SHIPS AT SUNSET by STANLEY E. BABB ENIGMA. TO THE LADIES by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD EPITAPH by THOMAS LOVELL BEDDOES PAL OF MY HEART by JULIA A. BRAND ON CREECH THE BOOKSELLER by ROBERT BURNS BALLAD TO THE TUNE OF 'I'LL HAVE MY LOVE, OR I'LL HAVE ONE' by PATRICK CAREY |