The sea still plunges where as naked boys <br />We dared the currents and the racing tides <br />That stamped red weals of fury on our thighs, <br />Yet did not know our first love was the sea <br />That rolled like colts between our shining knees, <br />While under us the sands in golden curls <br />Coiled round our bodies like the plaits of girls. <br /> <br />We came oblique to passion on that shore <br />Identified with our blind will to danger, <br />As when we explored the slipping walls of caves <br />Booming with dark more fearful than the waves <br />Whose silence magnified the heart's deep roar <br />Till senses beat that were asleep before, <br />And in ourselves we recognized a stranger. <br /> <br />Or when we scaled by Frenchman's Bay the cliff <br />No man has dared though boys there in the night <br />Still prove their manhood on its hostile side <br />That was our climb from innocence to life; <br />And yet, if I could be there once again, <br />My love, I'd pause amazed among the gulls, <br />Afraid of both the triumphs and the falls. <br /> <br />In sea and grotto where we found our hearts <br />Our youth remained, and all our days return <br />In dream and vision to the mocking sea <br />Where womanhood and manhood proudly stirred <br />Within our silence like a singing bird, <br />And never a dawning day will break as pure <br />As our grave adoration, immature.<br /><br />Francis Scarfe<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-grotto/
