HOW cold and hungry is the sea to-day, How clamorous against the thrifty shore, That yields not of her store Save sands, and weeds, and pebbles of the bay! "Give more! give more!" Methinks I hear him say; "And drive the hunger of my heart away! "Give me of sunny flowers, of golden grain, Of meadows sopped with sippings of the dew; Small loss it were to you, To me great solace of my endless pain; For few! ah, few! And shadowy and vain The joys that haunt my solitary reign! "Take me for ever to your constant breast, O land, O lovely, most unchanging land! Can you not understand How all my restlessness desires your rest? What murderer's brand Is stamped by God's behest Upon this brow, that you should loathe my quest? "O mute, insensate land! nor voiceless she, For she can speak, and I have heard her speak, When zephyrs kissed her cheek, Love-whispering in the twilight on the lea; Then, hushed, and meek, I've heard her gentle glee, And schooled my heart to think 'twas not for me. "Sometimes at evening I have heard you pray, And listened, looking up the misty glen, And only said @3Amen@1, Else silent, lest one sound uncaught should stray; And then, O then! 'Our Father,' you did say; But I have been a wanderer wild alway. "O, I am hungry, hungry at my heart! Give me, O, give me, even of thy worst! Give, as to one accurst, Drear moorlands, and all rushy fens, where start Black streams, that, nurst In barrenness, must part! Give me but wastes and snippets of the chart!" Thus speaks the sea, his hue all ashen gray With paleness of inveterate desires; Then on the ebb retires -- Full strange it seems that that cold heart should sway With passionate fires! But ah! my soul can say How vain it is when she requires The coast, so near, yet on whose absolute spires Looms the sad frown of an eternal "Nay." | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ERASMUS by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON AN AMERICAN IN BANGKOK by KAREN SWENSON FIFTH AVENUE-SPRING AFTERNOON by LOUIS UNTERMEYER THE SOUTH COUNTRY by HILAIRE BELLOC THE SILLER CROUN by SUSANNA BLAMIRE ODE WRITTEN IN [THE BEGINNING OF THE YEAR] 1746 by WILLIAM COLLINS (1721-1759) |