Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ON THE SEA, by ALICE CARY


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ON THE SEA, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: I will call her when she comes to me
Last Line: As I sail away on the sea.
Subject(s): Sea; Ocean


I WILL call her when she comes to me
My lily, and not my wife,
So whitely and so tenderly
She was set in my stormy life.

In vain her gentle eyes to please
The year had done her best,
Setting her tides of crocuses
All softly toward the west:

The bright west, where our love was born
And grew to perfect bloom,
And where the broad leaves of the corn
Hang low about her tomb.

I hid from men my cruel wound
And sailed away on the sea,
But like waves around some hulk aground
Her love enfoldeth me.

My clumsy hands are cracked and brown;
My chin is rough as a bur,
But under the dry husk soft as down
Lieth my love for her.

One night when storms were in the sky --
Sailing away on the sea,
I dreamed that I was doomed to die,
And that she came to me.

They bound my eyes, but I had sight
And saw her take that hour
My head so bright in her apron white
As if it had been a flower!

No child when I sit alone at night
Comes climbing on my knee,
But I dream of love and my heart is light
As I sail away on the sea.





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