Classic Poem

From shore to shore
Far as the weariest aching sight can roam
Billows that climb and burst, billows that roar;
Wan leagues of sunless foam.

If ever we
Reach a new land of peace, of peace divine,
The first green hills will rise beyond the sea,
Beyond the waste of brine.

Far out we sail:
Far out of eyeshot of the former land.
Round us the wandering white-winged sea-birds wail,
A lonely weird strange band.

They know not, these,
The calm and beauty of the summer shore;
The light and laughter of the leafy trees;
The fragrance of the pine-wood floor.

No dales are theirs
Thyme-scented, gentle, full of chant of bees:
Only the wild hoarse singing of the airs,
The desolate trumpet of the seas.

Yet triumph high
They feel, those white-winged birds far out at sea.
The green wave's curve is tenderer to the eye
Sometimes than gleam of grass or tree.

And we can share
Those sea-birds' triumph and their wild delight,
Feeling around their plumes the lonely air
And the sweet lonely night.

When trees and flowers
Shine once more on us, they will be quite new,
And other than the old forsaken bowers
Will edge the undreamed-of blue.

Our only hope
(What hope for love but this?) is just to steer,
While grim sea-breezes rock the quivering rope,
Past reach of eye or ear.

Then when the hills
Rise, faintly glittering on another shore
That unimagined other sunshine fills,—
On whose white cliffs new billows roar,—

With tearful eyes
We shall mark forest-deeps loom forth again
And with a sudden thrilling of surprise
See summer flowers, and without pain.

But out of sight
Of trees and flowers and land to-day are we:
Above us the great star-hung arch of night;
Round us the grey-green wastes of sea.