Likewise you are
Oracular
Of its low melody.
You voice its laughing moods,
Its lyric interludes,
Its secrecies, its sorceries, its mysteries,
Its tragic histories.
Aye, all that it has breathed, may breathe, shall breathe,
You unto me bequeath;
Thus am I made the fair inheritor
Of that rare essence of true harmony
Which many a land-girt exile hungers for,--
The sea!




NIGHT SONG BY THE SEA


Wind and rain are at the pane,
Shrilling, drumming without cease;
And the breakers' loud refrain
Gives the shuddering heart no peace.
Lord of all the things that be,
Pity Thou the souls at sea!

Snugly roofed with warmth and glow,
And encompassed soft by sleep,
Little we land-dwellers know