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1902
WHO hath desired the Sea?—the sight of salt water unbounded— | |
| The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber wind-hounded? | |
| The sleek-barrelled swell before storm, grey, foamless, enormous, and growing— | |
| Stark calm on the lap of the Line or the crazy-eyed hurricane blowing— | |
| His Sea in no showing the same—his Sea and the same ’neath each showing: | 5 |
| His Sea as she slackens or thrills? | |
| So and no otherwise—so and no otherwise—hillmen desire their Hills! | |
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| Who hath desired the Sea?—the immense and contemptuous surges? | |
| The shudder, the stumble, the swerve, as the star-stabbing bowsprit emerges? | |
| The orderly clouds of the Trades, the ridged, roaring sapphire thereunder— | 10 |
| Unheralded cliff-haunting flaws and the headsail’s low-volleying thunder— | |
| His Sea in no wonder the same—his Sea and the same through each wonder: | |
| His Sea as she rages or stills? | |
| So and no otherwise—so and no otherwise—hillmen desire their Hills. | |
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| Who hath desired the Sea? Her menaces swift as her mercies? | 15 |
| The in-rolling walls of the fog and the silver-winged breeze that disperses? | |
| The unstable mined berg going South and the calvings and groans that declare it— | |
| White water half-guessed overside and the moon breaking timely to bare it; | |
| His Sea as his fathers have dared—his Sea as his children shall dare it: | |
| His Sea as she serves him or kills? | 20 |
| So and no otherwise—so and no otherwise—hillmen desire their Hills. | |
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| Who hath desired the Sea? Her excellent loneliness rather | |
| Than forecourts of kings, and her outermost pits than the streets where men gather | |
| Inland, among dust, under trees—inland where the slayer may slay him— | |
| Inland, out of reach of her arms, and the bosom whereon he must lay him— | 25 |
| His Sea from the first that betrayed—at the last that shall never betray him: | |
| His Sea that his being fulfils? | |
| So and no otherwise—so and no otherwise—hillmen desire their Hills. | |
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