Sea Longings

The first world-sound that fell upon my ear
  Was that of the great winds along the coast
  Crushing the deep-sea beryl on the rocks--
  The distant breakers' sullen cannonade.
  Against the spires and gables of the town
  The white fog drifted, catching here and there
  At overleaning cornice or peaked roof,
  And hung--weird gonfalons. The garden walks
  Were choked with leaves, and on their ragged biers
  Lay dead the sweets of summer--damask rose,
  Clove-pink, old-fashioned, loved New England flowers
  Only keen salt-sea odors filled the air.
  Sea-sounds, sea-odors--these were all my world.
  Hence is it that life languishes with me
  Inland; the valleys stifle me with gloom
  And pent-up prospect; in their narrow bound
  Imagination flutters futile wings.
  Vainly I seek the sloping pearl-white sand
  And the mirage's phantom citadels
  Miraculous, a moment seen, then gone.
  Among the mountains I am ill at ease,
  Missing the stretched horizon's level line
  And the illimitable restless blue.
  The crag-torn sky is not the sky I love,
  But one unbroken sapphire spanning all;
  And nobler than the branches of a pine
  Aslant upon a precipice's edge
  Are the strained spars of some great battle-ship
  Plowing across the sunset. No bird's lilt
  So takes me as the whistling of the gale
  Among the shrouds. My cradle-song was this,
  Strange inarticulate sorrows of the sea,
  Blithe rhythms upgathered from the Sirens' caves.
  Perchance of earthly voices the last voice
  That shall an instant my freed spirit stay
  On this world's verge, will be some message blown
  Over the dim salt lands that fringe the coast
  At dusk, or when the tranced midnight droops
  With weight of stars, or haply just as dawn,
  Illumining the sullen purple wave,
  Turns the gray pools and willow-stems to gold.