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Dinah Maria Mulock - At The Seaside
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O SOLITARY shining sea 
That ripples in the sun, 
O gray and melancholy sea, 
O`er which the shadows run; 

O many-voiced and angry sea, 
Breaking with moan and strain,-- 
I, like a humble, chastened child, 
Come back to thee again; 

And build child-castles and dig moats 
Upon the quiet sands, 
And twist the cliff-convolvulus 
Once more, round idle hands; 

And look across that ocean line, 
As o`er life`s summer sea, 
Where many a hope went sailing once, 
Full set, with canvas free. 

Strange, strange to think how some of them 
Their silver sails have furled, 
And some have whitely glided down 
Into the under world; 

And some, dismasted, tossed and torn, 
Put back in port once more, 
Thankful to ride, with freight still safe, 
At anchor near the shore. 

Stranger it is to lie at ease 
As now, with thoughts that fly 
More light and wandering than sea-birds 
Between the waves and sky: 

To play child`s play with shells and weeds, 
And view the ocean grand 
Sunk to one wave that may submerge 
A baby-house of sand; 

And not once look, or look by chance, 
With old dreams quite supprest, 
Across that mystic wild sea-world 
Of infinite unrest. 

O ever solitary sea, 
Of which we all have found 
Somewhat to dream or say,--the type 
Of things without a bound-- 

Love, long as life, and strong as death; 
Faith, humble as sublime; 
Eternity, whose large depths hold 
The wrecks of this small Time;-- 

Unchanging, everlasting sea! 
To spirits soothed and calm 
Thy restless moan of other years 
Becomes an endless psalm.
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