The sea, my mother, is singing to me, <br /> She is singing the old refrain, <br />Of passion, of love, and of mystery, <br /> And her world-old song of pain; <br />Of the mirk midnight and the dazzling day, <br />That trail their robes o'er the wet sea-way. <br /> <br />The sea, my mother, is singing to me <br /> With the white foam caught in her hair, <br />With the seaweed swinging its long arms free, <br /> To grapple the blown sea air: <br />The sea, my mother, with billowy swell, <br />Is telling her tale to the wave-washed shell. <br /> <br />The sea, my mother, is singing to me, <br /> With the starry gleam in her wave, <br />A dirge of the dead, of the sad, sad sea, <br /> A requiem song of the brave; <br />Tenderly, sadly, the surges tell <br />Their tale of death to the wave-washed shell. <br /> <br />The sea, my mother, confides to me, <br /> As she turns to the soft, round moon, <br />The secrets that lie where the spirits be, <br /> That hide from the garish noon: <br />The sea, my mother, who loves me well, <br />Is telling their woe to the wave-washed shell. <br /> <br />O mother o' mine, with the foam-flecked hair, <br /> O mother, I love and know <br />The heart that is sad and the soul that is bare <br /> To your daughter of ebb and flow; <br />And I hold your whispers of Heaven and Hell <br />In the loving heart of a wave-washed shell.<br /><br />David MacDonald Ross<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-sea-to-the-shell/
