On the Seashore

Related poetry:

1. Seashore On the seashore of endless worlds children meet. The infinite sky is motionless overhead And the restless water is boisterous. On the seashore of endless worlds The children meet with shouts and dances. They build their houses with sand And they play with empty shells. With withered leaves they weave their boats And smilingly float […]...
2. Sketch THE shadows of the ships Rock on the crest In the low blue lustre Of the tardy and the soft inrolling tide. A long brown bar at the dip of the sky Puts an arm of sand in the span of salt. The lucid and endless wrinkles Draw in, lapse and withdraw. Wavelets crumble and […]...
3. A Paumanok Picture TWO boats with nets lying off the sea-beach, quite still, Ten fishermen waiting-they discover a thick school of mossbonkers-they drop the join’d seine-ends in the water, The boats separate and row off, each on its rounding course to the beach, enclosing the mossbonkers, The net is drawn in by a windlass by those who stop […]...
4. Leaning Into The Afternoons Leaning into the afternoons, I cast my sad nets towards your oceanic eyes. There, in the highest blaze my solitude lengthens and flames; Its arms turning like a drowning man’s. I send out red signals across your absent eyes That wave like the sea, or the beach by a lighthouse. You keep only darkness my […]...
5. Far Rockaway “the cure of souls.” Henry James The radiant soda of the seashore fashions Fun, foam and freedom. The sea laves The Shaven sand. And the light sways forward On self-destroying waves. The rigor of the weekday is cast aside with shoes, With business suits and traffic’s motion; The lolling man lies with the passionate sun, […]...
6. Walking Across The Atlantic I wait for the holiday crowd to clear the beach Before stepping onto the first wave. Soon I am walking across the Atlantic Thinking about Spain, Checking for whales, waterspouts. I feel the water holding up my shifting weight. Tonight I will sleep on its rocking surface. But for now I try to imagine what […]...
7. Warning to Children Children, if you dare to think Of the greatness, rareness, muchness Fewness of this precious only Endless world in which you say You live, you think of things like this: Blocks of slate enclosing dappled Red and green, enclosing tawny Yellow nets, enclosing white And black acres of dominoes, Where a neat brown paper parcel […]...
8. Home From Abroad Far-fetched with tales of other worlds and ways, My skin well-oiled with wines of the Levant, I set my face into a filial smile To greet the pale, domestic kiss of Kent. But shall I never learn? That gawky girl, Recalled so primly in my foreign thoughts, Becomes again the green-haired queen of love Whose […]...
9. The Meditation Of The Old Fisherman You waves, though you dance by my feet like children at play, Though you glow and you glance, though you purr and you dart; In the Junes that were warmer than these are, the waves were more gay, When I was a boy with never a crack in my heart. The herring are not in […]...
10. The Made to Order Smile When a woman looks up at you with a twist about her eyes, And her brows are half uplifted in a nicely feigned surprise As you breathe some pretty sentence, though she hates you all the while, She is very apt to stun you with a made to order smile. It’s a sublte combination of […]...
11. While Gazing on the Moon's Light While gazing on the moon’s light, A moment from her smile I turn’d, To look at orbs that, more bright, In lone and distant glory burn’d. But too far Each proud star, For me to feel its warming flame; Much more dear That mild sphere, Which near our planet smiling came; Thus, Mary, be but […]...
12. Mater Dei She looked to east, she looked to west, Her eyes, unfathomable, mild, That saw both worlds, came home to rest,­ Home to her own sweet child. God’s golden head was at her breast. What need to look o’er land and sea? What could the winged ships bring to her? What gold or gems of price […]...
13. The Little Orphan The crowded street his playground is, a patch of blue his sky; A puddle in a vacant lot his sea where ships pass by: Poor little orphan boy of five, the city smoke and grime Taint every cooling breeze he gets throughout the summer time; And he is just as your boy is, a child […]...
14. Down on the Shore Down on the shore, on the sunny shore! Where the salt smell cheers the land; Where the tide moves bright under boundless light, And the surge on the glittering strand; Where the children wade in the shallow pools, Or run from the froth in play; Where the swift little boats with milk-white wings Are crossing […]...
15. "What says the sea, little shell?&quot “What says the sea, little shell? What says the sea? Long has our brother been silent to us, Kept his message for the ships, Awkward ships, stupid ships.” “The sea bids you mourn, O Pines, Sing low in the moonlight. He sends tale of the land of doom, Of place where endless falls A rain […]...
16. Smiles Smile a little, smile a little, As you go along, Not alone when life is pleasant, But when things go wrong. Care delights to see you frowning, Loves to hear you sigh; Turn a smiling face upon her – Quick the dame will fly. Smile a little, smile a little, All along the road; Every […]...
17. The Gardener XVIII: When Two Sisters When the two sisters go to fetch Water, they come to this spot and They smile. They must be aware of somebody Who stands behind the trees when- Ever they go to fetch water. The two sisters whisper to each Other when they pass this spot. They must have guessed the secret Of that somebody […]...
18. The Rose Of Battle Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World! The tall thought-woven sails, that flap unfurled Above the tide of hours, trouble the air, And God’s bell buoyed to be the water’s care; While hushed from fear, or loud with hope, a band With blown, spray-dabbled hair gather at hand, Turn if you may from […]...
19. Song at Sunset SPLENDOR of ended day, floating and filling me! Hour prophetic-hour resuming the past! Inflating my throat-you, divine average! You, Earth and Life, till the last ray gleams, I sing. Open mouth of my Soul, uttering gladness, Eyes of my Soul, seeing perfection, Natural life of me, faithfully praising things; Corroborating forever the triumph of things. […]...
20. The Eye The Atlantic is a stormy moat; and the Mediterranean, The blue pool in the old garden, More than five thousand years has drunk sacrifice Of ships and blood, and shines in the sun; but here the Pacific Our ships, planes, wars are perfectly irrelevant. Neither our present blood-feud with the brave dwarfs Nor any future […]...
21. The Mother Your children grow from you apart, Afar and still afar; And yet it should rejoice your heart To see how glad they are; In school and sport, in work and play, And last, in wedded bliss How others claim with joy to-day The lips you used to kiss. Your children distant will become, And wide […]...
22. Nurses Song (Experience) When the voices of children. are heard on the green And whisprings are in the dale: The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind, My face turns green and pale. Then come home my children. the sun is gone down And the dews of night arise Your spring & your day. are wasted […]...
23. Tin Fish The ships destroy us above And ensnare us beneath. We arise, we lie down, and we In the belly of Death. The ships have a thousand eyes To mark where we come. . . But the mirth of a seaport dies When our blow gets home....
24. Flying Fish I HAVE lived in many half-worlds myself… and so I know you. I leaned at a deck rail watching a monotonous sea, the same circling birds and the same plunge of furrows carved by the plowing keel. I leaned so… and you fluttered struggling between two waves in the air now… and then under the […]...
25. Eastern River Do not look for the stones In water above the mud, The boat is gone. No longer with nets and baskets The river is dotted. The sun wick, The marsh marigold flickered out in rain. Only the willow still bears witness, In its roots The secrets of tramps lie hidden, Their paltry treasures, A rusty […]...
26. Sail On, Sail On Sail on, sail on, thou fearless bark Where’er blows the welcome wind, It cannot lead to scenes more dark, More sad than those we leave behind. Each wave that passes seems to say, “Though death beneath our smile may be, Less cold we are, less false than they, Whose smiling wreck’d thy hopes and thee.” […]...
27. To My Name-Child 1 Some day soon this rhyming volume, if you learn with proper speed, Little Louis Sanchez, will be given you to read. Then you shall discover, that your name was printed down By the English printers, long before, in London town. In the great and busy city where the East and West are met, All […]...
28. The Gardener LXXVI: The Fair Was On The fair was on before the temple. It had rained from the early morning And the day came to its end. Brighter than all the gladness of The crowd was the bright smile of A girl who bought for a farthing a Whistle of palm leaf. The shrill joy of that whistle floated Above all […]...
29. A Girl Sang a Song A girl sang a song in the temple’s chorus, About men, tired in alien lands, About the ships that left native shores, And all who forgot their joy to the end. Thus sang her clean voice, and flew up to the highness, And sunbeams shined on her shoulder’s white And everyone saw and heard from […]...
30. Our Boat Starts At Night Our boat starts at night From the beach of Yen Kuang. Great ships sail only for profit Only small boats come here because of your fame. The passers-by are embarrassed by your virtue. So in the night we steal by the place where you used to fish....
31. The Child of Destiny THIS is the hero-heart of the enchanted isle, Whom now the twilight children tenderly enfold, Pat with their pearly palms and crown with elfin gold, While in the mountain’s breast his brothers watch and smile. Who now of Dana’s host may guide these dancing feet? What bright immortal hides and through a child’s light breath […]...
32. 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 […]...
33. Dutch lullaby Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night Sailed off in a wooden shoe, Sailed on a river of misty light Into a sea of dew. “Where are you going, and what do you wish?” The old moon asked the three. “We have come to fish for the herring-fish That live in this beautiful sea; Nets of […]...
34. My Rocking-Chair When I am old and worse for wear I want to buy a rocking-chair, And set it on a porch where shine The stars of morning-glory vine; With just beyond, a gleam of grass, A shady street where people pass; And some who come with time to spare, To yarn beside my rocking-chair. Then I […]...
35. Wynken, Blynken, and Nod Wynken, Blynken, and Nod one night Sailed off in a wooden shoe, Sailed on a river of crystal light Into a sea of dew. “Where are you going, and what do you wish?” The old moon asked the three. “We have come to fish for the herring-fish That live in this beautiful sea; Nets of […]...
36. Passageways Who set, between those rocks like cinder, To show the honey of dream, That golden broom, Those blue rosemaries? Who painted the purple mountains And the saffron, sunset sky? The hermitage, the beehives, The cleft of the river The endless rolling water deep in rocks, The pale-green of new fields, All of it, even the […]...
37. The White Ships and the Red (For Alden March) With drooping sail and pennant That never a wind may reach, They float in sunless waters Beside a sunless beach. Their mighty masts and funnels Are white as driven snow, And with a pallid radiance Their ghostly bulwarks glow. Here is a Spanish galleon That once with gold was gay, Here is […]...
38. Masses AMONG the mountains I wandered and saw blue haze and Red crag and was amazed; On the beach where the long push under the endless tide Maneuvers, I stood silent; Under the stars on the prairie watching the Dipper slant Over the horizon’s grass, I was full of thoughts. Great men, pageants of war and […]...
39. Go, songs, for ended is our brief, sweet play Go, songs, for ended is our brief, sweet play; Go, children of swift joy and tardy sorrow: And some are sung, and that was yesterday, And some are unsung, and that may be tomorrow. Go forth; and if it be o’er stony way, Old joy can lend what newer grief must borrow: And it was […]...
40. The Smile on the Face of a Kouros This boy, of course, was dead, whatever that Might mean. And nobly dead. I think we should feel He was nobly dead. He fell in battle, perhaps, And this carved stone remembers him Not as he may have looked, but as if to define The naked virtue the stone describes as his. One foot is […]...