I was at the coast for the weekend, enjoying the lovely seaside towns and the Sylvia Beach Hotel. This poem, evoking the coastal sunset, seemed a fitting one to post after my return!
NB: The name "Michael Field" was a pseudonym for Victorian-era aunt and niece writing team Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper.
Ebbtide at Sundown
O larger is remembrance than desire!
O deeper than all longing is regret!
The tide is gone, the sands are rippled yet;
The sun is gone: the hills are lifted higher,
Crested with rose. Ah, why should we require
Sight of the sea, the sun? The sands are wet,
And in their glassy flaws huge record set
Of the ebbed stream, the little ball of fire.
Gone, they are gone! But oh, so freshly gone,
So rich in vanishing we ask not where --
So close upon us is the bliss that shone,
And oh, so thickly it impregns the air!
Closer in beating heart we could not be
To the sunk sun, the far, surrendered sea.
Great poem, love the pivotal lines:
ReplyDeleteO deeper than all longing is regret!
...
The sands are wet,
And in their glassy flaws huge record set...
Life in a nutshell!