Classic Poem

ST E NOGAT'S B AY

The doubts and discords of my heart are dumb;
I have become
Part of the cosmic rhythm of the Lord;
For all my being vibrates in accord
With the blue pulses of the tide that sways
And creeps and ripples into rocky bays, —
With the white tremor of the surf that smiles,
As breakers beat upon the Breton isles.

The doubts and discords of my heart are dumb;
I have become
Discarnate spirit in the sea's embrace, —
A flux of colour in the void of space.
The blue above blends with the blue below,
Till both in sea and sky I seem to flow,
And stars and islands on my breast I bear,
And crimson in my veins the sunsets flare.

The doubts and discords of my heart are dumb;
I have become
An ebb and flow, an elemental urge,
Haar of the mist, and heaving of the surge,
Sigh of the wind, and murmur of the waves,
Roar of the reefs, and music of the caves.
Grown part and partner of the Oversoul,
In every wavelet I partake the Whole.

The doubts and discords of my heart are dumb;
I have become
Suddenly, subtly, wondrously aware
That I am everything and everywhere,
My limbs no longer firm and solid seem,
But vaporous and ghostly as a dream, —
Merely a surgent blueness and a thrill —
A body, or a sky, or sea, at will.

The doubts and discords of my heart are dumb;
I have become
A disembodied spirit. Body and limb
As in a blue Nirvana seem to swim.
There is nought else, only the Sea and I,
And the immense supernal summer sky;
And with the sea so fathomless and broad,
My spirit ripples in the Breath of God.

The doubts and discords of my heart are dumb;
I have become
Nothing but surf, and billows blue and white,
All senses in the saturate sense of sight
Sated and consummated. Drowned and tost
In the blue waves my body I have lost;
I have become the Spirit of the Sea,
And know the Life in it, the Life in me.