Foliage: Various Poems

<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0033" id="link2H_4_0033"> </SPAN></p> <br/> <h2> DREAMS OF THE SEA </h2> <p>I know not why I yearn for thee again,<br/> To sail once more upon thy fickle flood;<br/> I'll hear thy waves wash under my death-bed,<br/> Thy salt is lodged forever in my blood.<br/> <br/> Yet I have seen thee lash the vessel's sides<br/> In fury, with thy many tailed whip;<br/> And I have seen thee, too, like Galilee,<br/> When Jesus walked in peace to Simon's ship<br/> <br/> And I have seen thy gentle breeze as soft<br/> As summer's, when it makes the cornfields run;<br/> And I have seen thy rude and lusty gale<br/> Make ships show half their bellies to the sun.<br/> <br/> Thou knowest the way to tame the wildest life,<br/> Thou knowest the way to bend the great and proud:<br/> I think of that Armada whose puffed sails,<br/> Greedy and large, came swallowing every cloud.<br/> <br/> But I have seen the sea-boy, young and drowned,<br/> Lying on shore and by thy cruel hand,<br/> A seaweed beard was on his tender chin,<br/> His heaven-blue eyes were filled with common sand.<br/> <br/> And yet, for all, I yearn for thee again,<br/> To sail once more upon thy fickle flood:<br/> I'll hear thy waves wash under my death-bed,<br/> Thy salt is lodged forever in my blood.<br/></p> <p><br/><br/></p> <hr /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />