I WAS content, O Sea, to be free for a space from striving,
Content as the brown weed is, at rest on the rocks in the sun,
When the salt tide is out, and the surf no more is riving
At its roots, or swirling and bidding it sway where the white waves run.

I was content — with life, and love, and a little over;
A little achieved of the much that is given to men to do.
But now with your tidal strife do you come again, vain rover,
And tell of vastitudes — to be sailed, or sounded anew.

Now again do you surge. And the fathomless tides of thinking,
Of wanting, waiting, despairing — or daring — with you come;
The inner tides of the soul, that had ebbed with slumberous shrinking,
But now are bursting again, through the caves of it long numb.

So vainly I lie on the cliff with the blissful Blue above me
And listless sated gulls afloat below on the swells,
For I am soothless, sateless, because of desires that shove me
Out and away with the winds, on quests no distance quells!