Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, LINES FROM THE SEA; TO D'ANNUZIO: JANUARY 1921, by ROBERT MALISE BOWYER NICHOLS


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LINES FROM THE SEA; TO D'ANNUZIO: JANUARY 1921, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Loudens the sea-wind, downward plunge the bows
Last Line: That, when my hour strikes, I, as he, may dare!
Subject(s): Adriatic Sea; D'annunzio, Gabriele (1863-1938)


LOUDENS the sea-wind, downward plunge the bows,
Glass-green she takes it, staggers, rolls and checks,
Then sheers, and as she buffets back the blows
There comes a thundering along the decks.

The surf-smoke flies, the tatter'd cloud-wings haste,
And the white sun, sheeted or glaring cold,
Whirls a harsh sword upon the spumy waste—
Now ancient grey, now weltering dizzy gold.

This is the Adriatic; and I gaze
In vain toward the north horizon's round,
To where behind the threshes' driving haze,
Beyond the glittering wilderness's bound,

There stands that man, target of Europe's eyes,
Who in unholy honour her decree
Defied; whom now th' unbending Fates chastise
With their most biting scourge: bare memory.

D'Annunzio, upon the further shore
Of this bleak Adriatic, while the brine
Whitens the tunic which the shrapnel tore,
From which you have ripped your valour's golden sign,

They say you wander, and the shrewd sun's glance
Mocks you with starving warmth, the cruel cold
Hail compasses you with its ironic dance—
You, halt, bald, blind; you, shivering, beaten, old.

Thus do they say; and that you sometimes cast
Hands that entreat towards the thunderous waves,
As if to summon from the gorgeous past,
And those black depths, such galleons and such braves

As throned your Venice, in republican state,
Regent of every sun-filled sea that stirs
Between the Sicilian's rosy sundown gate
And the Cathayan's dawn-dark ridge of firs.

But quite in vain! the breaker's curling crest
Shrieks as the wind stoops on the tortured seas
To tear the brown weed from its cloven breast ...
And suddenly you fall upon your knees.

And there is broken from your desolate heart
So loud, so bitter, long and lost a cry
That those who watch you secretly apart
For sudden pity do not dare draw nigh.

They pity—but not I! Were pity priced
So low, how spare true misery a tear?
What though you bear the cross of Antichrist,
It is in very truth a cross you bear;

And we, to whom no certain faith is given
With which in desperate act to gauge our worth,
Or, having faith, are granted not of heaven
Fierce hours to bear its crown or cross on earth,

We envy you. Whose is a happier lot
Than his, who of all contraries aware
Dares to believe, and when hell rages hot
Is given an hour for that belief to dare?

He, who in face of contradiction's spite
Has with his doubt so wrought he can aver
That he believes, has to his soul a right;
And he whom not a world's odds can deter

From making trial of belief so won
Has known his soul; but he who best and last
Fights till belief be lost or he undone,
Has given the world a soul, and holds his fast.

Therefore, D'Annunzio, gazing on your sea,
I hail you, and I lift to heaven this prayer:
Grant me such faith and such a foe as he,
That, when my hour strikes, I, as he, may dare!





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