Unrevealable Sea

"More than bare mountains ’neath a naked sky,
Or star-enchanted hollows of the night

When clouds are riven, or the most sacred light

Of summer dawns, art thou a mystery

And awe and terror and delight, O sea!

Our Earth is simple-hearted, sad to-day

Beneath the hush of snow, next morning gay

Because west-winds have promised to the lea

Violets and cuckoo-buds; and sweetly these

Live innocent lives, each flower in its green field,

Joying as children in sun, air, and sleep.

But thou art terrible, with the unrevealed

Burden of dim lamentful prophecies,
And thy lone life is passionate and deep.
...

Light ebbs from off the Earth; the fields are strange,

Dusk, trackless, tenantless; now the mute sky

Resigns itself to Night and Memory…"

- Edward Dowden (1843 - 1913)
"Ocean," in Poems