you, you are all unloving, loveless, you;

restless and lonely, shaken by your own moods,

you are celibate and single, scorning a comrade even,

threshing your own passions with no woman for

the threshing-floor,

finishing your dreams for your own sake only,

playing your great game around the world, alone,

without playmate, or helpmate, having no one to

cherish,

no one to comfort, and refusing any comforter.

not like the earth, the spouse all full of increase

moiled over with the rearing of her many-mouthed

young;

you are single, you are fruitless, phosphorescent,

cold and callous,

naked of worship, of love or of adornment,

scorning the panacea even of labour,

sworn to a high and splendid purposelessness

of brooding and delighting in the secret of life's

goings,

sea, only you are free, sophisticated.

you who toil not, you who spin not,

surely but for you and your like, toiling

were not worth while, nor spinning worth the

effort!

you who take the moon as in a sieve, and sift

her flake by flake and spread her meaning out;

you who roll the stars like jewels in your palm,

so that they seem to utter themselves aloud;

you who steep from out the days their colour,

reveal the universal tint that dyes

their web; who shadow the sun's great gestures

and expressions

so that he seems a stranger in his passing;

who voice the dumb night fittingly;

sea, you shadow of all things, now mock us to

death with your shadowing.

bournemouth