Alexander

It was the Great Alexander,
Capped with a golden helm,
Sate in the ages, in his floating ship,
In a dead calm.

Voices of sea-maids singing
Wandered across the deep:
The sailors labouring on their oars
Rowed, as in sleep.

All the high pomp of Asia,
Charmed by that siren lay,
Out of their weary and dreaming minds,
Faded away.

Like a bold boy sate their Captain,
His glamour withered and gone,
In the souls of his brooding mariners,
While the song pined on.

Time, like a falling dew,
Life, like the scene of a dream,
Laid between slumber and slumber,
Only did seem....

O Alexander, then,
In all us mortals too,
Wax thou not bold - too bold
On the wave dark-blue!

Come the calm, infinite night,
Who then will hear
Aught save the singing
Of the sea-maids clear?

Walter De La Mare

Walter De La Mare was an English poet, short story writer, and novelist, best remembered for his works for children and his poem "The Listeners". Born in 1873 in Charlton, Kent, De La Mare's unique blend of haunting, dreamlike imagery and masterful command of language earned him a lasting place in English literature. He was awarded the Order of Merit in 1953, and his works continue to be celebrated for their ethereal and evocative quality.

Walter De La Mare

Mistress Fell

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

Summer Evening

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

The Mountains

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

The Children Of Stare

Walter De La Mare, Simple Poetry

English

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'Who are you, Sea Lady,
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John Marr And Other Sailors

Since as in night's deck-watch ye show,
Why, lads, so silent here to me,
Your watchmate of times long ago?
Once, for all the darkling sea,
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O, not from memory lightly flung,
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Pytheas

Gaul whose keel in far, dim ages ploughed wan widths of polar sea
Gray old sailor of Massilia, who hath woven wreath for thee?
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Lords of song, and these are many, never yet have raised the lay
For the white, wind-beaten seaman of a wild, forgotten day.
Harp of shining son of Godhead still is as a voice august;
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From the fair, calm bays Hellenic, from the crescents and the bends,
Round the wall of crystal Athens, glowing in gold evening-ends,
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The Secret Of The Sea

Ah! what pleasant visions haunt me
    As I gaze upon the sea!
All the old romantic legends,
    All my dreams, come back to me.

Sails of silk and ropes of sandal,
    Such as gleam in ancient lore;
And the singing of the sailors,
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Most of all, the Spanish ballad
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Like the long waves on a sea-beach,
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Telling how the Count Arnaldos,
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Loch Torridon

To E. H.


The dawn of night more fair than morning rose,
Stars hurrying forth on stars, as snows on snows
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Vague miles of moorland road behind us lay
Scarce traversed ere the day
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Was none; for soft Maree's dim quivering breast,
Bound round with gracious inland girth of green
And fearless of the wild wave-wandering West,
Shone shelterless for strangers; and unseen
The goal before us lay
Of all our blithe and strange and strenuous day.
For when the northering road faced westward, when
The dark sharp sudden gorge dropped seaward, then,
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The Englishman

I met a sailor in the woods,
    A silver ring wore he,
His hair hung black, his eyes shone blue,
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    What shore of what salt sea,
Be this, my son, I wander in,
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Says I, 'O foreign sailorman,
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He lifts his voice yet louder,
    'What smell be this,' says he,
'My nose on the sharp morning air
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Says I, 'It is wild roses
    Do smell so winsomely,
And winy briar too,' says I,
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'And oh!' says he, 'what leetle bird
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Walter De La Mare