Song of the Wave XVII
The strong shore is my beloved
And I am his sweetheart.
We are at last united by love, and
Then the moon draws me from him.
I go to him in haste and depart
Reluctantly, with many
Little farewells.
I steal swiftly from behind the
Blue horizon to cast the silver of
My foam upon the gold of his sand, and
We blend in melted brilliance.
I quench his thirst and submerge his
Heart; he softens my voice and subdues
My temper.
At dawn I recite the rules of love upon
His ears, and he embraces me longingly.
At eventide I sing to him the song of
Hope, and then print smooth hisses upon
His face; I am swift and fearful, but he
Is quiet, patient, and thoughtful. His
Broad bosom soothes my restlessness.
As the tide comes we caress each other,
When it withdraws, I drop to his feet in
Prayer.
Many times have I danced around mermaids
As they rose from the depths and rested
Upon my crest to watch the stars;
Many times have I heard lovers complain
Of their smallness, and I helped them to sigh.
Many times have I teased the great rocks
And fondled them with a smile, but never
Have I received laughter from them;
Many times have I lifted drowning souls
And carried them tenderly to my beloved
Shore. He gives them strength as he
Takes mine.
Many times have I stolen gems from the
Depths and presented them to my beloved
Shore. He takes them in silence, but still
I give fro he welcomes me ever.
In the heaviness of night, when all
Creatures seek the ghost of Slumber, I
Sit up, singing at one time and sighing
At another. I am awake always.
Alas! Sleeplessness has weakened me!
But I am a lover, and the truth of love
Is strong.
I may be weary, but I shall never die.
Related poetry:
- Self-Knowledge XVII And a man said, “Speak to us of Self-Knowledge.” And he answered, saying: Your hearts know in silence the secrets of the days and the nights. But your ears thirst for the sound of your heart’s knowledge. You would know in words that which you have always know in thought. You would touch with your […]...
- We send the Wave to find the Wave We send the Wave to find the Wave An Errand so divine, The Messenger enamored too, Forgetting to return, We make the wise distinction still, Soever made in vain, The sagest time to dam the sea is when the sea is gone...
- Mercian Hymns XVII He drove at evening through the hushed Vosges. The car radio, Glimmering, received broken utterance from the horizon of storms… ‘God’s honours – our bikes touched: he skidded and came off.’ ‘Liar.’ A Timid father’s protective bellow. Disfigurement of a village king. ‘Just Look at the bugger…’ His maroon GT chanted then overtook. He lavished […]...
- Reliance Not to the swift, the race: Not to the strong, the fight: Not to the righteous, perfect grace: Not to the wise, the light. But often faltering feet Come surest to the goal; And they who walk in darkness meet The sunrise of the soul. A thousand times by night The Syrian hosts have died; […]...
- Modern Love XVII: At Dinner She Is Hostess At dinner, she is hostess, I am host. Went the feast ever cheerfuller? She keeps The Topic over intellectual deeps In buoyancy afloat. They see no ghost. With sparkling surface-eyes we ply the ball: It is in truth a most contagious game: HIDING THE SKELETON, shall be its name. Such play as this the devils […]...
- 239. Song-My Bonie Mary GO, fetch to me a pint o’ wine, And fill it in a silver tassie; That I may drink before I go, A service to my bonie lassie. The boat rocks at the pier o’ Leith; Fu’ loud the wind blaws frae the Ferry; The ship rides by the Berwick-law, And I maun leave my […]...
- Sonnet XVII: Love Steals Unheeded Love steals unheeded o’er the tranquil mind, As Summer breezes fan the sleeping main, Slow through each fibre creeps the subtle pain, ‘Till closely round the yielding bosom twin’d. Vain is the hope the magic to unbind, The potent mischief riots in the brain, Grasps ev’ry thought, and burns in ev’ry vein, ‘Till in the […]...
- XVII (Thinking, Tangling Shadows…) Thinking, tangling shadows in the deep solitude. You are far away too, oh farther than anyone. Thinking, freeing birds, dissolving images, Burying lamps. Belfry of fogs, how far away, up there! Stifling laments, milling shadowy hopes, Taciturn miller, Night falls on you face downward, far from the city. Your presence is foreign, as strange to […]...
- A Song at Shannon's Two men came out of Shannon’s, having known The faces of each other for so long As they had listened there to an old song, Sung thinly in a wastrel monotone By some unhappy night-bird, who had flown Too many times and with a wing too strong To save himself; and so done heavy wrong […]...
- Sonnet XVII Who will believe my verse in time to come, If it were fill’d with your most high deserts? Though yet, heaven knows, it is but as a tomb Which hides your life and shows not half your parts. If I could write the beauty of your eyes And in fresh numbers number all your graces, […]...
- The Song of Right and Wrong Feast on wine or fast on water And your honour shall stand sure, God Almighty’s son and daughter He the valiant, she the pure; If an angel out of heaven Brings you other things to drink, Thank him for his kind attentions, Go and pour them down the sink. Tea is like the East he […]...
- XVII (I do not love you…) I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, Or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, In secret, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that never blooms But carries in itself the light […]...
- Love Sonnet XVII I do not love you as if you were a salt rose, or topaz Or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, In secret, between the shadow and the soul. I love you as the plant that never blooms But carries in itself […]...
- Venetian Morning Windows pampered like princes always see What on occasion deigns to trouble us: The city that, time and again, where a shimmer Of sky strikes a feeling of floodtide, Takes shape without once choosing to be. Each new morning must first show her the opals She wore yesterday, and pull rows Of reflections out of […]...
- Love Song How can I keep my soul in me, so that It doesn’t touch your soul? How can I raise It high enough, past you, to other things? I would like to shelter it, among remote Lost objects, in some dark and silent place That doesn’t resonate when your depths resound. Yet everything that touches us, […]...
- The Ocean's Song We walked amongst the ruins famed in story Of Rozel-Tower, And saw the boundless waters stretch in glory And heave in power. O Ocean vast! We heard thy song with wonder, Whilst waves marked time. “Appear, O Truth!” thou sang’st with tone of thunder, “And shine sublime! “The world’s enslaved and hunted down by beagles, […]...
- Idylls Of The King: Song From The Marriage Of Geraint Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel, and lower the proud; Turn thy wild wheel thro’ sunshine, storm, and cloud; Thy wheel and thee we neither love nor hate. Turn, Fortune, turn thy wheel with smile or frown; With that wild wheel we go not up or down; Our hoard is little, but our hearts are great. […]...
- Tides O patient shore, thou canst not go to meet Thy love, the restless sea, how comfortest Thou all thy loneliness? Art thou at rest, When, loosing his strong arms from round thy feet, He turns away? Know’st thou, however sweet That other shore may be, that to thy breast He must return? And when in […]...
- A Song Of Success Ho! we were strong, we were swift, we were brave. Youth was a challenge, and Life was a fight. All that was best in us gladly we gave, Sprang from the rally, and leapt for the height. Smiling is Love in a foam of Spring flowers: Harden our hearts to him on let us press! […]...
- Song of Man XXV I was here from the moment of the Beginning, and here I am still. And I shall remain here until the end Of the world, for there is no Ending to my grief-stricken being. I roamed the infinite sky, and Soared in the ideal world, and Floated through the firmament. But Here I am, prisoner […]...
- Holy Sonnet XVII: Since She Whom I Loved Since she whom I loved hath paid her last debt To Nature, and to hers, and my good is dead, And her soul early into heaven ravished, Wholly on heavenly things my mind is set. Here the admiring her my mind did whet To seek thee, God; so streams do show the head; But though […]...
- The sun has burst the sky The sun has burst the sky Because I love you And the river its banks. The sea laps the great rocks Because I love you And takes no heed of the moon dragging it away And saying coldly ‘Constancy is not for you’. The blackbird fills the air Because I love you With spring and […]...
- Song V: Through the Trouble and Tangle Love is enough: through the trouble and tangle From yesterday’s dawning to yesterday’s night I sought through the vales where the prisoned winds wrangle, Till, wearied and bleeding, at end of the light I met him, and we wrestled, and great was my might. O great was my joy, though no rest was around me, […]...
- Song of Love XXIV I am the lover’s eyes, and the spirit’s Wine, and the heart’s nourishment. I am a rose. My heart opens at dawn and The virgin kisses me and places me Upon her breast. I am the house of true fortune, and the Origin of pleasure, and the beginning Of peace and tranquility. I am the […]...
- COPTIC SONG LEAVE we the pedants to quarrel and strive, Rigid and cautious the teachers to be! All of the wisest men e’er seen alive Smile, nod, and join in the chorus with me: “Vain ’tis to wait till the dolt grows less silly! Play then the fool with the fool, willy-nilly, Children of wisdom, remember the […]...
- Harp Song of the Dane Women What is a woman that you forsake her, And the hearth-fire and the home-acre, To go with the old grey Widow-maker? She has no house to lay a guest in But one chill bed for all to rest in, That the pale suns and the stray bergs nest in. She has no strong white arms […]...
- Love Song Once in the world’s first prime, When nothing lived or stirred, Nothing but new-born Time, Nor was there even a bird – The Silence spoke to a Star, But do not dare repeat What it said to its love afar: It was too sweet, too sweet. But there, in the fair world’s youth, Ere sorrow […]...
- Song Of A Dream ONCE in the dream of a night I stood Lone in the light of a magical wood, Soul-deep in visions that poppy-like sprang; And spirits of Truth were the birds that sang, And spirits of Love were the stars that glowed, And spirits of Peace were the streams that flowed In that magical wood in […]...
- Sonnets xvii O NEVER say that I was false of heart, Though absence seem’d my flame to qualify! As easy might I from myself depart, As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie: That is my home of love; if I have ranged, Like him that travels I return again, Just to the time, not […]...
- Dream Song 47: April Fool's Day, or, St Mary of Egypt —Thass a funny title, Mr Bones. €”When down she saw her feet, sweet fish, on the threshold, She considered her fair shoulders And all them hundreds who have them, all The more who to her mime thickened & maled From the supple stage, And seeing her feet, in a visit, side by side Paused on […]...
- A School Song “Let us now praise famous men” Men of little showing For their work continueth, And their work continueth, Broad and deep continues, Greater then their knowing! Western wind and open surge Took us from our mothers Flung us on a naked shore (Twelve bleak houses by the shore. Seven summers by the shore! ) ‘Mid […]...
- Modern Declaration I, having loved ever since I was a child a few things, never having Wavered In these affections; never through shyness in the houses of the Rich or in the presence of clergymen having denied these Loves; Never when worked upon by cynics like chiropractors having Grunted or clicked a vertebra to the discredit of […]...
- Sonnet XVII: His Mother Dear Cupid His mother dear Cupid offended late, Because that Mars grown slacker in her love, With pricking shot he did not throughly more To keep the pace of their first loving state. The boy refus’d for fear of Mars’s hate, Who threaten’d stripes, if he his wrath did prove: But she in chafe him from her […]...
- Dream Song 51: Our wounds to time, from all the other times Our wounds to time, from all the other times, Sea-times slow, the times of galaxies Fleeing, the dwarfs’ dead times, Lessen so little that if here in his crude rimes Henry them mentions, do not hold it, please, For a putting of man down. Ol’ Marster, being bound you do your best Versus we coons, […]...
- The Sirens' Song STEER, hither steer your winged pines, All beaten mariners! Here lie Love’s undiscover’d mines, A prey to passengers Perfumes far sweeter than the best Which make the Phoenix’ urn and nest. Fear not your ships, Nor any to oppose you save our lips; But come on shore, Where no joy dies till Love hath gotten […]...
- The Power Of Song The foaming stream from out the rock With thunder roar begins to rush, The oak falls prostrate at the shock, And mountain-wrecks attend the gush. With rapturous awe, in wonder lost, The wanderer hearkens to the sound; From cliff to cliff he hears it tossed, Yet knows not whither it is bound: ‘Tis thus that […]...
- The Pelagian Drinking Song Pelagius lived at Kardanoel And taught a doctrine there How, whether you went to heaven or to hell It was your own affair. It had nothing to do with the Church, my boy, But was your own affair. No, he didn’t believe In Adam and Eve He put no faith therein! His doubts began With […]...
- The Moon Maiden's Song Sleep! Cast thy canopy Over this sleeper’s brain, Dim grow his memory, When he wake again. Love stays a summer night, Till lights of morning come; Then takes her winged flight Back to her starry home. Sleep! Yet thy days are mine; Love’s seal is over thee: Far though my ways from thine, Dim though […]...
- To The King's Most Excellent Majesty YOUR subjects hope, dread Sire The crown upon your brows may flourish long, And that your arm may in your God be strong! O may your sceptre num’rous nations sway, And all with love and readiness obey! But how shall we the British king reward! Rule thou in peace, our father, and our lord! Midst […]...
- A Lover's Call XXVII Where are you, my beloved? Are you in that little Paradise, watering the flowers who look upon you As infants look upon the breast of their mothers? Or are you in your chamber where the shrine of Virtue has been placed in your honor, and upon Which you offer my heart and soul as sacrifice? […]...