| CONSIDER the sea’s listless chime: | |
| Time’s self it is, made audible,— | |
| The murmur of the earth’s own shell. | |
| Secret continuance sublime | |
| Is the sea’s end: our sight may pass | 5 |
| No furlong farther. Since time was, | |
| This sound hath told the lapse of time. | |
| |
| No quiet, which is death’s,—it hath | |
| The mournfulness of ancient life, | |
| Enduring always at dull strife. | 10 |
| As the world’s heart of rest and wrath, | |
| Its painful pulse is in the sands. | |
| Last utterly, the whole sky stands, | |
| Grey and not known, along its path. | |
| |
| Listen alone beside the sea, | 15 |
| Listen alone among the woods; | |
| Those voices of twin solitudes | |
| Shall have one sound alike to thee: | |
| Hark where the murmurs of thronged men | |
| Surge and sink back and surge again,— | 20 |
| Still the one voice of wave and tree. | |
| |
| Gather a shell from the strown beach | |
| And listen at its lips: they sigh | |
| The same desire and mystery, | |
| The echo of the whole sea’s speech | 25 |
| And all mankind is thus at heart | |
| Not anything but what thou art: | |
| And Earth, Sea, Man, are all in each. | |
