Studies in Song Part 9

15.

All too sweet such men's h.e.l.lenic speech is, All too fain they lived of light to see, Once to see the darkness of these beaches, Once to sing this Hades found of me Ghostless, all its gulfs and creeks and reaches, Sky, and sh.o.r.e, and cloud, and waste, and sea.

IV.

1.

But aloft and afront of me faring Far forward as folk in a dream That strive, between doubting and daring Right on till the goal for them gleam, Full forth till their goal on them lighten, The harbour where fain they would be, What headlands there darken and brighten?

What change in the sea?

2.

What houses and woodlands that nestle Safe inland to lee of the hill As it slopes from the headlands that wrestle And succ.u.mb to the strong sea's will?

Truce is not, nor respite, nor pity, For the battle is waged not of hands Where over the grave of a city The ghost of it stands.

3.

Where the wings of the sea-wind slacken, Green lawns to the landward thrive, Fields brighten and pine-woods blacken, And the heat in their heart is alive; They blossom and warble and murmur, For the sense of their spirit is free: But harder to sh.o.r.eward and firmer The grasp of the sea.

4.

Like ashes the low cliffs crumble, The banks drop down into dust, The heights of the hills are made humble, As a reed's is the strength of their trust: As a city's that armies environ, The strength of their stay is of sand: But the grasp of the sea is as iron, Laid hard on the land.

5.

A land that is thirstier than ruin; A sea that is hungrier than death; Heaped hills that a tree never grew in; Wide sands where the wave draws breath; All solace is here for the spirit That ever for ever may be For the soul of thy son to inherit, My mother, my sea.

6.

O delight of the headlands and beaches!

O desire of the wind on the wold, More glad than a man's when it reaches That end which it sought from of old And the palm of possession is dreary To the sense that in search of it sinned; But nor satisfied ever nor weary Is ever the wind.

7.

The delight that he takes but in living Is more than of all things that live: For the world that has all things for giving Has nothing so goodly to give: But more than delight his desire is, For the goal where his pinions would be Is immortal as air or as fire is, Immense as the sea.

8.

Though hence come the moan that he borrows From darkness and depth of the night, Though hence be the spring of his sorrows, Hence too is the joy of his might; The delight that his doom is for ever To seek and desire and rejoice, And the sense that eternity never Shall silence his voice.

9.

That satiety never may stifle Nor weariness ever estrange Nor time be so strong as to rifle Nor change be so great as to change His gift that renews in the giving.

The joy that exalts him to be Alone of all elements living The lord of the sea.

10.

What is fire, that its flame should consume her?

More fierce than all fires are her waves: What is earth, that its gulfs should entomb her?

More deep are her own than their graves.

Life shrinks from his pinions that cover The darkness by thunders bedinned: But she knows him, her lord and her lover, The G.o.dhead of wind.

11.

For a season his wings are about her, His breath on her lips for a s.p.a.ce; Such rapture he wins not without her In the width of his worldwide race.

Though the forests bow down, and the mountains Wax dark, and the tribes of them flee, His delight is more deep in the fountains And springs of the sea.

12.

There are those too of mortals that love him, There are souls that desire and require, Be the glories of midnight above him Or beneath him the daysprings of fire: And their hearts are as harps that approve him And praise him as chords of a lyre That were fain with their music to move him To meet their desire.

13.

To descend through the darkness to grace them, Till darkness were lovelier than light: To encompa.s.s and grasp and embrace them, Till their weakness were one with his might: With the strength of his wings to caress them, With the blast of his breath to set free; With the mouths of his thunders to bless them For sons of the sea.

14.

For these have the toil and the guerdon That the wind has eternally: these Have part in the boon and the burden Of the sleepless unsatisfied breeze, That finds not, but seeking rejoices That possession can work him no wrong: And the voice at the heart of their voice is The sense of his song.

15.

For the wind's is their doom and their blessing; To desire, and have always above A possession beyond their possessing, A love beyond reach of their love.

Green earth has her sons and her daughters, And these have their guerdons; but we Are the wind's and the sun's and the water's, Elect of the sea.

V.

1.

For the sea too seeks and rejoices, Gains and loses and gains, And the joy of her heart's own choice is As ours, and as ours are her pains: As the thoughts of our hearts are her voices, And as hers is the pulse of our veins.

2.

Her fields that know not of dearth Nor lie for their fruit's sake fallow Laugh large in the depth of their mirth But insh.o.r.e here in the shallow, Embroiled with enc.u.mbrance of earth, Their skirts are turbid and yellow.

3.

The grime of her greed is upon her, The sign of her deed is her soil; As the earth's is her own dishonour, And corruption the crown of her toil: She hath spoiled and devoured, and her honour Is this, to be shamed by her spoil.

4.

But afar where pollution is none, Nor ensign of strife nor endeavour, Where her heart and the sun's are one, And the soil of her sin comes never, She is pure as the wind and the sun, And her sweetness endureth for ever.

VI.

1.