Did you ever feel this about the sea,
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In her huge enfolding ecstasy
That you yourself were about to be
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Rock and sea-weed, and even as she?
That you swayed and swung on the brink of a change,
A wordless glory, a wild and strange
Translation blindingly swift and sweet;
As it were, would open and take you in,
And you and the sea be kin and kin,
And the land nevermore be pressed of your feet.
Ah! when your heart is filled full with the sea,
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And your body hangs poised, like a crystal sphere,
In an infinite ether of mystical glee,
Streamed through and through,
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With the delicate vastness of heaven as near
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And soft as a flower or a tear;
Flesh no more, but a thing to hold
Joy like a cup and song like a bird:
Only in music is hidden the word
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For the height and the depth of your ecstasy,
Lost in a palace of light, and alone,
As a god is alone, with the sea.
O then of the sea have a care!
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In that moment of high content
It was that the wise Greek meant
By the sea-nymph and her hair.
Call back your heart, lest it fill
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Your mortal heart, lest it break
With too much of divinity,
And the soul of waters enter in,
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And you and the sea be kin and kin!
Ah! then shall you watch, as she sways and sings,
The earth and its folk as alien things.