NEED OF STORM

On the green floor of the Gulf the wind is walking,

Printing it with invisible feet;

The tide is talking.

Purple and grey the horizon walls them round

With purpler clouds.

They wander in it like guests gently astray

In a house deep mystery shrouds.

I do not know the speech of the tide,

For too articulate have become my years:

Beauty brings only words, not breathless tears.

So the young heron fishing there in the foam

On the sand's edge,

Would once have taken my spirit far, far home

To the infinite, when he vanished thro the gloam.

But now I am left behind on the beach — a shell

That no more knows the wonder of the sea's swell,

Or more than the empty echo of its knell.

To sea then, Life, wildly to sea with a storm

Sweep me again,

From the smooth dull beach of custom where I lie,

That I may feel once more

The swaying surge of passion thro me swarm!