Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, HYMN TO THE SEA, by PAUL FORT


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

HYMN TO THE SEA, by                    
First Line: Great sea, too much have fools impugned our empire's might, boast
Last Line: Sky, deposits evermore the infinite salt of stars.
Subject(s): Sea; Ships & Shipping; Ocean


Great Sea, too much have fools impugned your empire's might, boasting your
random powers in mutual combat fight! Great Sea, whose flashing fire and roaring
bolts are hurled when you would fain reflect the turmoil of the world!

Ah, do your thoughts recall of storied Greece or Rome the fleets engulfed like
lead to rest beneath your foam? Before and since that day where sail man's swift
triremes? The Argo, Spanish galleons, gone like forgotten dreams,

the shattered galleys, bent above your mirror's gloom, which, with uplifted
prow, were sucked beneath your flood? The ships submerged, once more your
mirrors, filled with blood, united, of great names the all-effacing tomb.

Can nothing mortal, Sea, afford the life you crave and calm the thirst for
heaven of your drunk mirrors vast? Is it the Other World you most reflect at
last to appease the bounding glass of your insatiate wave?

'Tis at the heaven's high verge that tempests tire and cease, upreared like
soaring Hope in the trembling azure air. 'Tis when, at the planet's call,
towards the white clouds you fare that, in reflecting them, you dream of love
and peace.

In freshets of the Spring, flood your confining bars, and through pale wastes of
space mount frenziedly on high to where the sea of Chaos, on far shores of the
sky, deposits evermore the infinite salt of stars.





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