FROM out the dragging vastness of the sea, Wave-fettered, bound in sinuous seaweed strands, He toils toward the rounding beach, and stands One moment, white and dripping, silently, Cut like a cameo in lazuli, Then falls, betrayed by shifting shells, and lands Prone in the jeering water, and his hands Clutch for support where no support can be. So up, and down, and forward, inch by inch, He gains upon the shore, where poppies glow And sandflies dance their little lives away. The sucking waves retard, and tighter clinch The weeds about him, but the land-winds blow, And in the sky there blooms the sun of May. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONG: WOO'D AND MARRIED AND A' by JOANNA BAILLIE JUNE (1) by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT THE GENTLE CHECK by JOSEPH BEAUMONT FRONT LINE by WILLIAM ROSE BENET LYNCHED NEGRO by MAXWELL BODENHEIM THE DRUNKEN DESPERADO by BAIRD BOYD |