Who hath desired the Sea?—the sight of salt water unbounded—
The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber
wind-hounded?
The sleek-barrelled swell before storm, grey, foamless, enormous, and
growing—
Stark calm on the lap of the Line or the crazy-eyed hurricane
blowing—
His Sea in no showing the same—his Sea and the same ’neath each
showing—
His Sea as she slackens or thrills?
So and no otherwise—so and no otherwise hillmen desire their Hills!
Who hath desired the Sea?—the immense and contemptuous surges?
The shudder, the stumble, the swerve, as the star-stabbing bowsprit
emerges?
The orderly clouds of the Trades, and the ridged, roaring sapphire
thereunder—
Unheralded cliff-haunting flaws and the headsail’s low-volleying
thunder—
His Sea in no wonder the same—his Sea and the same through each
wonder:
His Sea as she rages or stills?
So and no otherwise—so and no otherwise hillmen desire their Hills.
Who hath desired the Sea? Her menaces swift as her mercies,
The in-rolling walls of the fog and the silver-winged breeze that
disperses?
The unstable mined berg going South and the calvings and groans that
declare it;
White water half-guessed overside and the moon breaking timely to
bare it;
His Sea as his fathers have dared—his Sea as his children shall dare
it—
His Sea as she serves him or kills?
So and no otherwise—so and no otherwise hillmen desire their Hills.
Who hath desired the Sea? Her excellent loneliness rather
Than forecourts of kings, and her outermost pits than the streets
where men gather
Inland, among dust, under trees—inland where the slayer may slay
him—
Inland, out of reach of her arms, and the bosom whereon he must lay
him—
His Sea at the first that betrayed—at the last that shall never
betray him—
His Sea that his being fulfils?
So and no otherwise—so and no otherwise hillmen desire their Hills.
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