O SOLITARY shining sea <br />That ripples in the sun, <br />O gray and melancholy sea, <br />O'er which the shadows run; <br /> <br />O many-voiced and angry sea, <br />Breaking with moan and strain,-- <br />I, like a humble, chastened child, <br />Come back to thee again; <br /> <br />And build child-castles and dig moats <br />Upon the quiet sands, <br />And twist the cliff-convolvulus <br />Once more, round idle hands; <br /> <br />And look across that ocean line, <br />As o'er life's summer sea, <br />Where many a hope went sailing once, <br />Full set, with canvas free. <br /> <br />Strange, strange to think how some of them <br />Their silver sails have furled, <br />And some have whitely glided down <br />Into the under world; <br /> <br />And some, dismasted, tossed and torn, <br />Put back in port once more, <br />Thankful to ride, with freight still safe, <br />At anchor near the shore. <br /> <br />Stranger it is to lie at ease <br />As now, with thoughts that fly <br />More light and wandering than sea-birds <br />Between the waves and sky: <br /> <br />To play child's play with shells and weeds, <br />And view the ocean grand <br />Sunk to one wave that may submerge <br />A baby-house of sand; <br /> <br />And not once look, or look by chance, <br />With old dreams quite supprest, <br />Across that mystic wild sea-world <br />Of infinite unrest. <br /> <br />O ever solitary sea, <br />Of which we all have found <br />Somewhat to dream or say,--the type <br />Of things without a bound-- <br /> <br />Love, long as life, and strong as death; <br />Faith, humble as sublime; <br />Eternity, whose large depths hold <br />The wrecks of this small Time;-- <br /> <br />Unchanging, everlasting sea! <br />To spirits soothed and calm <br />Thy restless moan of other years <br />Becomes an endless psalm.<br /><br />Dinah Maria Mulock Craik<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/at-the-seaside/
