Sea, Rivers and Oceans

Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar.

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore

The Sea of Faith

Countless chuckles of the waves of the sea.

a crystal willow, a poplar of water, a tall fountain the wind arches over, a tree deep-rooted yet dancing still, a course of a river that turns, moves on, doubles back, and comes full circle, forever arriving:

It is like what we imagine knowledge to be: dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free, drawn from the cold hard mouth of the world, derived from the rocky breasts forever, flowing and drawn, and since our knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown.

Cold dark deep and absolutely clear, element bearable to no mortal, to fish and to seals…

The sea is the land’s edge also, the granite Into which it reaches, the beaches where it tosses Its hints of earlier and other creation: The starfish, the hermit crab, the whale’s backbone; The pools where it offers to our curiosity The more delicate algae and the sea anemone. It tosses up our losses, the torn seine, The shattered lobsterpot, the broken oar And the gear of foreign dead men. The sea has many voices.

The houses are all gone under the sea.

What seas what shores what gray rocks and what islands What water lapping the bow And scent of pine and the woodthrush singing through the fog What images return O my daughter.

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead, Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell And the profit and loss.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me.

Pacific leans on the land, Feeling his cold strength To the outmost margins.

Mothlike in mists, scintillant in the minute brilliance of cloudless days, with broad bellying sails they glide to the wind tossing green water from their sharp prows while over them the crew crawls.

Under Pont Mirabeau flows the Seine. 3

And still the grossest iridescence of ocean Howls hoo and rises and howls hoo and falls.

That dolphin-torn, that gong-tormented sea.

Who hath desired the sea?—the sight of salt water unbounded.

It is found again. What? Eternity. It is the sea Gone with the sun. 11

I have seen the sunset, stained with mystic horrors, Illumine the rolling waves with long purple forms, Like actors in ancient plays. 7

Lighter than a cork I danced on the waves. 5

Of the Sea… Devouring the green azures. 6

And as the smart ship grew In stature, grace, and hue, In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.

I never saw a Moor— I never saw the Sea— Yet know I how the Heather looks And what a Billow be. I never spoke with God Nor visited in Heaven— Yet certain am I of the spot As if the Checks were given—