The World Voice

I heard the summer sea

Murmuring to the shore

Some endless story of a wrong

The whole world must deplore.

I heard the mountain wind

Conversing with the trees

Of an old sorrow of the hills,

Mysterious as the sea's.

And all that haunted day

It seemed that I could hear

The echo of an ancient speech

Ring in my listening ear.

And then it came to me,

That all that I had heard

Was my own heart in the sea's voice

And the wind's lonely word.