AND will you rest at last, storm-beaten spirit, <br />In this poor heart, who would your haven be, <br />Will you sink down at last, content to inherit <br />The common treaures of tranquillity? <br />Will you forget your high and fierce endeavor <br />The hinted island and the hidden seas, <br />Defeats, escapes, adventures, that forever <br />Left you more sad, and never more at ease? <br /> <br />When the west wind on summer evenings blowing <br />Brings to your ears the sound of sails that fill, <br />And moving ships eclipse your starlight, going <br />To lands unseen, and fates that beckon still; <br />When you shall see beneath the moon new risen, <br />The hissing wake of other vessels' foam, <br />Will not this land-locked harbor seem a prison <br />Where calms and shallows mock the name of home? <br /> <br />Ah, when your longing for the open ocean <br />Captures your heart, and bids you set your sail, <br />Feeble will be the bonds of my devotion; <br />Little will love - your own or mine - avail: <br />Happy to you will seem some ship-wrecked stranger, <br />Keener than love the zest of being free, <br />Sweeter than peace, the summoning of danger; <br />Some day at sunrise you will put to sea.<br /><br />Alice Duer Miller<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/harbor-2/
