Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE SWIMMER (2), by RODEN BERKELEY WRIOTHESLEY NOEL Poet's Biography First Line: Yonder, lo! The tide is flowing Last Line: And shadow-haunted ocean gleams! Subject(s): Sea; Swimming & Swimmers; Ocean; Swimmers | ||||||||
YONDER, lo! the tide is flowing; Clamber, while the breeze is blowing, Down to where a soft foam flusters Dulse and fairy feathery clusters! While it fills the shelly hollows, A swift sister billow follows, Leaps in hurrying with the tide, Seems the lingering wave to chide; Both push on with eager life, And a gurgling show of strife. O the salt, refreshing air Shrilly blowing in the hair! A keen, healthful savour haunts Sea-shell, sea-flower, and sea-plants. Innocent billows on the strand Leave a crystal over sand, Whose thin ebbing soon is crossed By a crystal foam-enmossed, Variegating silvergrey Shell-empetalled sand in play: When from sand dries off the brine, Vanishes swift shadow fine; But a wet sand is a glass Where the plumy cloudlets pass, Floating islands of the blue, Tender, shining, fair, and true. Who would linger idle, Dallying would lie, When wind and wave, a bridal Celebrating, fly? Let him plunge among them, Who hath wooed enough, Flirted with them, sung them! In the salt seatrough He may win them, onward On a buoyant crest, Far to seaward, sunward, Oceanborne to rest! Wild wind will sing over him, And the free foam cover him, Swimming seaward, sunward, On a blithe sea-breast! On a blithe sea-bosom Swims another too, Swims a live sea-blossom, A grey-winged seamew! Grape green all the waves are, By whose hurrying line Half of ships and caves are Buried under brine; Supple, shifting ranges Lucent at the crest, With pearly surface-changes Never laid to rest: Now a dripping gunwale Momently he sees, Now a fuming funnel, Or red flag in the breeze. Arms flung open wide, Lip the laughing sea; For playfellow, for bride, Claim her impetuously! Triumphantly exult with all the free Buoyant bounding splendour of the sea! And if, while on the billow Wearily he lay, His awful wild playfellow Filled his mouth with spray, Reft him of his breath, To some far realms away He would float with Death; Wild wind would sing over him, And the free foam cover him, Waft him sleeping onward, Floating seaward, sunward, All alone with Death; In a realm of wondrous dreams, And shadow-haunted ocean gleams! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...STILL ON WATER by KENNETH REXROTH THE ROUND FISH by ELEANOR WILNER THE SUMMER I WAS SIXTEEN by GERALDINE CONNOLLY THE EXCHANGE by ALICIA SUSKIN OSTRIKER WITH KIT, AGE 7, AT THE BEACH by WILLIAM EDGAR STAFFORD THE CASE OF EDGAR ABBOTT AND PHILIP RIDD by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS SEA SLUMBER-SONG by RODEN BERKELEY WRIOTHESLEY NOEL |
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