I <br />The morning is ten thousand miles away. <br />The winter night surrounds me, vast and cold, <br />Without a star. The voiceless fog is rolled <br />From ocean-levels desolate and grey; <br />But over all the floods of moonlight lay <br />A glory on those billows that enfold <br />The muffled sea and forest. Gaunt and old, <br />The dripping redwoods wait the distant day. <br /> <br />Unknown, above, what silver-dripping waves <br />Break slowly on the purple reefs of night! <br />What radiant foam ascends from shadowy <br />bars, <br />Or sinks unechoing to soundless caves! <br />No whisper is upon those tides of light, <br />Setting in silence toward the risen stars. <br /> <br />II <br />O phantom sea, pale spirit of unrest! <br />There is no thunder where your billows break. <br />Morning shall be your strand; your waters make <br />An island of the mountain-top, whose crest <br />Is lonely on the ocean of your breast. <br />No sail is there save what our visions take <br />Of mist and moonlight, on whose ghostly wake <br />Our dreams go forth unuttered to the West. <br /> <br />The splendour on your tides is high and far, <br />Seen by the mind alone, whose wings can sweep <br />On wilder glories and a vaster deep. <br />Chill are your gulfs, O sea without a song! <br />Hiding the heavens from man, man from the star, <br />To which your parent sea endures as long.<br /><br />George Sterling<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-fog-sea/
