They all muddle their water that it may seem deep. And fain would they thereby prove themselves reconcilers: but mediaries and mixers are they unto me, and half-and-half, and impure!- Ah, I cast indeed my net into their sea, and meant to catch good fish; but always did I draw up the head of some ancient God. Thus did the sea give a stone to the hungry one. And they themselves may well originate from the sea. Certainly, one findeth pearls in them: thereby they are the more like hard molluscs. And instead of a soul, I have often found in them salt slime. They have learned from the sea also its vanity: is not the sea the peacock of peacocks? Even before the ugliest of all buffaloes doth it spread out its tail; never doth it tire of its lace-fan of silver and silk | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SIGISMONDA AND GUISCARDO by GIOVANNI BOCCACCIO ULYSSES AND THE SIREN by SAMUEL DANIEL THE FORERUNNERS by GEORGE HERBERT BANTAMS IN PINE-WOODS by WALLACE STEVENS TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE, IN NEW-ENGLAND by PHILLIS WHEATLEY TO SIR JOHN SPENSER KNIGHTE, ALDERMAN OF LONDON by RICHARD BARNFIELD VERSES TO A YOUNG FRIEND by BERNARD BARTON |