SOUND on, thou dark, unslumbering sea! My dirge is in thy moan; My spirit finds response in thee To its own ceaseless cry -- "Alone, alone!" Yet send me back one other word, Ye tones that never cease! Oh! let your secret caves be stirred, And say, dark waters! will ye give me @3peace?@1 Away! my weary soul hath sought In vain one echoing sigh, One answer to consuming thought In human hearts -- and will the @3wave@1 reply? Sound on, thou dark, unslumbering sea! Sound in thy scorn and pride! I ask not, alien world! from thee What my own kindred earth hath still denied. And yet I loved that earth so well, With all its lovely things! Was it for this the death-wind fell On my rich lyre, and quenched its living strings? Let them lie silent at my feet! Since, broken even as they, The heart whose music made them sweet Hath poured on desert sands its wealth away. Yet glory's light hath touched my name, The laurel-wreath is mine -- With a lone heart, a weary frame -- O restless deep! I come to make them thine! Give to that crown, that burning crown, Place in thy darkest hold! Bury my anguish, my renown, With hidden wrecks, lost gems, and wasted gold. Thou sea-bird on the billow's crest! @3Thou@1 hast thy love, thy home; They wait thee in the quiet nest, And I, th' unsought, unwatched-for -- I too come! I, with this winged nature fraught, These visions wildly free, This boundless love, this fiery thought -- @3Alone@1 I come -- oh! give me peace, dark sea! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ELEGY BEFORE DEATH by EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY SONNET TO MASTER GABRIELL HARVEY, DOCTOR OF LAWES by EDMUND SPENSER MY MOTHER by GEORGE WASHINGTON BETHUNE THE NUN AT COURT by EDMUND CHARLES BLUNDEN THE BUGLER FROM THE PEAKS by RICHARD EUGENE BURTON TOWARDS DEMOCRACY: PART 2. SUNDAY MORNING AFTER CHURCH by EDWARD CARPENTER THE SIGH by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE MOLOCH by JOSEPH SEAMON COTTER JR. DAISY SWAIN, THE FLOWER OF SHENANDOAH; A TALE OF THE REBELLION: 5 by JOHN M. DAGNALL |