THE SEA I will go back to the great sweet mother, Mother and lover of men, the sea. I will go down to her, I and none other, Close with her, kiss her and mix her with me; Cling to her, strive with her, hold her fast. O fair white mother in days long past. Born without sister, born without brother, Set free my soul as thy soul is free.
O fair green-girdled mother of mine, Sea, that art clothed with the sun and the rain, Thy sweet hard kisses are strong like wine, Thy large embraces are keen like pain. Save me and hide me with all thy waves, Find me one grave of thy thousand graves, Those pure cold populous graves of thine, Wrought without hand in a world without strain.
All art work on this page is by David Delamare
I shall sleep, and move with the moving ships, Change as the winds change, veer in the tide; My lips will feast on the foam of thy lips, I shall rise with thy rising, with thee subside; Sleep, and not know if she be, if she were, Filled full with life to the eyes and hair, As a rose is fulfilled to the roseleaf tips With splendid summer and perfume and pride.
This woven raiment of nights and days, Were it once cast off and unwound from me, Naked and glad would I walk in thy ways, Alive and aware of thy ways and thee; Clear of the whole world, hidden at home, Clothed with the green and crowned with the foam, A pulse of the life of thy straits and bays, A vein in the heart of the streams of the sea. ~Algernon Charles Swinburne
SEASHORE
I heard or seemed to hear the chiding Sea
Say, Pilgrim, why so late and slow to come?
Am I not always here, thy summer home?
Is not my voice thy music, morn and eve?
My breath thy healthful climate in the heats,
My touch thy antidote, my bay thy bath?
Was ever building like my terraces?
Was ever couch magnificent as mine?
Lie on the warm rock-ledges, and there learn
A little hut suffices like a town.
I make your sculptured architecture vain,
Vain beside mine. I drive my wedges home,
And carve the coastwise mountain into caves.
Lo! here is Rome and Nineveh and Thebes,
Karnak and Pyramid and Giant's Stairs
Half piled or prostrate; and my newest slab
Older than all thy race. Behold the Sea,
The opaline, the plentiful and strong,
Yet beautiful as is the rose in June,
Fresh as the trickling rainbow of July;
Sea full of food, the nourisher of kinds,
Purger of earth, and medicine of men;
Creating a sweet climate by my breath,
Washing out harms and griefs from memory,
And, in my mathematic ebb and flow,
Giving a hint of that which changes not.
Rich are the sea-gods:--who gives gifts but they?
They grope the sea for pearls, but more than pearls:
They pluck Force thence, and give it to the wise.
For every wave is wealth to D�dalus,
Wealth to the cunning artist who can work
This matchless strength. Where shall he find, O waves!
A load your Atlas shoulders cannot lift?
I with my hammer pounding evermore
The rocky coast, smite Andes into dust,
Strewing my bed, and, in another age,
Rebuild a continent of better men.
Then I unbar the doors: my paths lead out
The exodus of nations: I dispersed
Men to all shores that front the hoary main.
I too have arts and sorceries;
Illusion dwells forever with the wave.
I know what spells are laid. Leave me to deal
With credulous and imaginative man;
For, though he scoop my water in his palm,
A few rods off he deems it gems and clouds.
Planting strange fruits and sunshine on the shore,
I make some coast alluring, some lone isle,
To distant men, who must go there, or die.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
LA MER And when the day arrives I'll become the sky And I'll become the sea.
And the sea will come to kiss me For I am going home
Nothing can stop me now ~Trent Reznor~Nine Inch Nails
THE GREAT BELOW
staring at the sea will she come? is there hope for me after all is said and done anything at any price all of this for you all the spoils of a wasted life all of this for you all the world has closed her eyes tired faith all worn and thin for all we could have done and all that could have been
ocean pulls me close and whispers in my ear the destiny I've chose all becoming clear the currents have their say the time is drawing near washes me away makes me disappear
i descend from grace in arms of undertow i will take my place in the great below
i can still feel you even so far away ~Trent Reznor~Nine Inch Nails
