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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
A SEA DIALOGUE, by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Friend, you seem thoughtful. I not wonder much Last Line: Ay, ay, sir! Stiddy, sir! Sou'wes'b'sou'! Subject(s): Sea; Ocean | |||
CABIN PASSENGER FRIEND, you seem thoughtful. I not wonder much That he who sails the ocean should be sad. I am myself reflective. When I think Of all this wallowing beast, the Sea, has sucked Between his sharp thin lips, the wedgy waves, What heaps of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, pearls; What piles of shekels, talents, ducats, crowns, What bales of Tyrian mantles, Indian shawls, Of laces that have blanked the weavers' eyes, Of silken tissues, wrought by worm and man, The half-starved workman, and the wellfed worm; What marbles, bronzes, pictures, parchments, books; What many-lobuled, thought-engendering brains; Lie with the gaping sea-shells in his maw, -- I, too, am silent; for all language seems A mockery, and the speech of man is vain. O mariner, we look upon the waves And they rebuke our babbling. "Peace!" they say, -- "Mortal, be still!" My noisy tongue is hushed, And with my trembling finger on my lips My soul exclaims in ecstasy -- MAN AT WHEEL Belay! CABIN PASSENGER Ah yes! "Delay," -- it calls, "nor haste to break The charm of stillness with an idle word!" O mariner, I love thee, for thy thought Strides even with my own, nay, flies before. Thou art a brother to the wind and wave; Have they not music for thine ear as mine, When the wild tempest makes thy ship his lyre, Smiting a cavernous basso from the shrouds And climbing up his gamut through the stays, Through buntlines, bowlines, ratlines, till it shrills An alto keener than the locust sings, And all the great AEolian orchestra Storms out its mad sonata in the gale? Is not the scene a wondrous and -- MAN AT WHEEL Avast! CABIN PASSENGER Ah yes, a vast, a vast and wondrous scene! I see thy soul is open as the day That holds the sunshine in its azure bowl To all the solemn glories of the deep. Tell me, O mariner, dost thou never feel The grandeur of thine office, -- to control The keel that cuts the ocean like a knife And leaves a wake behind it like a seam In the great shining garment of the world? MAN AT WHEEL Belay y'r jaw, y' swab! y' hoss-marine! (To the Captain.) Ay, ay, Sir! Stiddy, Sir! Sou'wes'b'sou'! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...HALL OF OCEAN LIFE by JOHN HOLLANDER JULY FOURTH BY THE OCEAN by ROBINSON JEFFERS BOATS IN A FOG by ROBINSON JEFFERS CONTINENT'S END by ROBINSON JEFFERS THE FIGUREHEAD by LEONIE ADAMS A BALLAD OF THE BOSTON TEA-PARTY [DECEMBER 16, 1773] by OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES |
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