Classic Poem

I sat on the beach at twilight,
And watched the rising moon,
While on my ear the wavelets
Beat out their soothing croon.

The town-life, with its worry,
Had faded to a dream:
Life's toil had turned to fancy,
And fancies real did seem.

And so I watched the wavelets
Fall at my feet in play,
And let my dream-wings flutter
Through dreamlands far away.

The curling foam-flakes whispered
How, tossing round the world,
They'd kissed a tropic island,
As past it they were whirled.

It was so fair, they told me,
That, though they could not stay,
None might forget the vision;
It haunted them alway.

" It is, " they said, " this longing,
That ne'er outworn may be,
That makes us moan forever
The secret of the sea. "

" What is this secret? Tell me. "
The murmurous answer fell: —
" We've sought for one to listen,
That we the tale might tell.

" But none could understand us,
So evermore in vain
We sob in plaintive music
That no man can explain. "

The while I sat and listened,
The ripple on the beach
Of white waves in the moonshine
Became a silvery speech.

" That island of our vision
We saw so far away,
We hoped that men might find it
Some fair and happy day.

" For we have heard men's sighing,
And we have seen their tears,
While up the weary ages
They've toiled along the years.

" So when upon the ocean
They launched their ships at last,
We whispered, " We will lead them
Where sorrow shall be past."

" For we had seen the island
Uplift its palms in air,
And known it for that Eden
Where never comes despair.

" So round their ships we rippled,
And chased the winds at play,
Still hoping we might bring them
To that land far away.

" But ever are we baffled:
By adverse currents whirled,
To other oceans drifting,
Or on the breakers hurled,

" We see the vain endeavor,
We hear the hopeless cry,
While still through fruitless labors
They seek, find not, and die.

" And yet each wave that shoreward
Comes rippling up the bay
Has seen the vision splendid, —
That island far away.

" But still, with all our longing
That men this rest may gain,
Fate laughs at all our labor;
And " false, devouring main "

" Men call us, while so gladly
We would a pathway be
To lead them to this peaceful,
Fair island of the sea.

" But, 'stead of this, forever
Where priceless treasures sleep,
Fate whelms both ship and sailor
Beneath the moaning deep.

" This is the sea's sad secret, —
That, do whate'er we may,
The goal of our endeavor
Still lies so far away.

" 'Tis this, if men but knew it,
That makes the sea's low moan
In hours of weary longing,
So answer to their own.

" One age-long, endless struggle,
The unattained to gain,
The ever onward reaching,
And reaching still in vain, —

" This is the heart's sad secret,
Wherever men may be;
And this — the heart's deep echo, —
The secret of the sea. "