Classic and Contemporary Poetry
COSMISM, by CALE YOUNG RICE Poet's Biography First Line: The sea asleep like a dreamer sighs Last Line: But never refute its innocence. Subject(s): Grief; Pain; Sea; Soul; Universe; Sorrow; Sadness; Suffering; Misery; Ocean | ||||||||
The sea asleep like a dreamer sighs; The salt rock-pools lie still in the sun, Except for the sidling crab that creeps Through the moveless mosses green and dun. The small grey snail clings everywhere, For the tide is out; and the sea-weed dries Its tangled tresses in the warm air, That seems to ooze from the far blue skies, Where not a white gull on white wing flies. The mollusc gleams like a gem amid The scurf and the clustered green sea-grapes, Whose trellis is but the rock's bare side, Whose husbandman but the tide that drapes. The little sandpiper tilts and picks His food, on the wet sea-marges hid, Till sudden a wave comes in and flicks Him off, then flashes away to bid Another frighten him -- as it did. O sweet is the world of living things, And sweet are the mingled sea and shore! It seems as if I never again Shall find life ill -- as oft before. As if my days should come as the clouds Come yonder -- and vanish without wings; As if all sorrow that ever shrouds My soul and darkly about it clings Had lost for ever its ravenings. As if I knew with a deeper sense That good alone is ultimate; That never an evil wrought of God Or man came truly out of hate. That Better springs from the heart of Worse, As clam from the heaving elements; That all things born to the Universe May suffer and perish utterly hence, But never refute its Innocence. | 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 CHARM TO BRING CHILDREN (EGYPT, A.D. 100) by CALE YOUNG RICE |
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