The City And The Sea

I

To none the city bends a servile knee;
    Purse-proud and scornful, on her heights she stands,
And at her feet the great white moaning sea
    Shoulders incessantly the grey-gold sands, -
One the Almighty's child since time began,
    And one the might of Mammon, born of clods;
For all the city is the work of man,
    But all the sea is God's.

II

And she - between the ocean and the town -
    Lies cursed of one and by the other blest:
Her staring eyes, her long drenched hair, her gown,
    Sea-laved and soiled and dank above her breast.
She, image of her God since life began,
    She, but the child of Mammon, born of clods,
Her broken body spoiled and spurned of man,
    But her sweet soul is God's.

Emily Pauline Johnson

Emily Pauline Johnson was a Canadian poet of mixed Mohawk and English heritage. She was born on March 10, 1861, on the Six Nations Reserve near Brantford, Ontario. Johnson became known for her performances, where she often wore a traditional Mohawk dress. Her published works include poetry, short stories, and essays that explore themes of identity, cultural heritage, and nature. She passed away on March 7, 1913, in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Emily Pauline Johnson

In The Shadows

Emily Pauline Johnson, Simple Poetry

The Idlers

Emily Pauline Johnson, Simple Poetry

Lady Lorgnette

Emily Pauline Johnson, Simple Poetry

English

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Through Time And Bitter Distance"[1]

Unknown to you, I walk the cheerless shore.
    The cutting blast, the hurl of biting brine
May freeze, and still, and bind the waves at war,
    Ere you will ever know, O! Heart of mine,
That I have sought, reflected in the blue
    Of these sea depths, some shadow of your eyes;
Have hoped the laughing waves would sing of you,
    But this is all my starving sight descries -

I

Far out at sea a sail
    Bends to the freshening breeze,
Yields to the rising gale
    That sweeps the seas;

II

Yields, as a bird wind-tossed,
    To saltish waves that fling
Their spray, whose rime and frost
    Like crystals cling

III

To canvas, mast and spar,
    Till, gleaming like a gem,
She sinks beyond the far
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On The Voyage To Jerusalem. (Translations From The Hebrew Poets Of Medaeval Spain.)

        I.


My two-score years and ten are over,
Never again shall youth be mine.
The years are ready-winged for flying,
What crav'st thou still of feast and wine?
Wilt thou still court man's acclamation,
Forgetting what the Lord hath said?
And forfeiting thy weal eternal,
By thine own guilty heart misled?
Shalt thou have never done with folly,
Still fresh and new must it arise?
Oh heed it not, heed not the senses,
But follow God, be meek and wise;
Yea, profit by thy days remaining,
They hurry swiftly to the goal.
Be zealous in the Lord's high service,
And banish falsehood from thy soul.
Use all thy strength, use all thy fervor,
Defy thine own desires, awaken!
Be not afraid when seas are foaming,
And earth to her foundations shak...

Emma Lazarus

The City And The Sea

The panting City cried to the Sea,
"I am faint with heat,--O breathe on me!"

And the Sea said, "Lo, I breathe! but my breath
To some will be life, to others death!"

As to Prometheus, bringing ease
In pain, come the Oceanides,

So to the City, hot with the flame
Of the pitiless sun, the east wind came.

It came from the heaving breast of the deep,
Silent as dreams are, and sudden as sleep.

Life-giving, death-giving, which will it be;
O breath of the merciful, merciless Sea?

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Sea Reverie

Strange Sea! why is it that you never rest?
And tell me why you never go to sleep?
Thou art like one so sad and sin-oppressed --
(And the waves are the tears you weep) --
And thou didst never sin -- what ails the sinless deep?

To-night I hear you crying on the beach,
Like a weary child on its mother's breast --
A cry with an infinite and lonesome reach
Of unutterably deep unrest;
And thou didst never sin -- why art thou so distressed?

But, ah, sad Sea! the mother's breast is warm,
Where crieth the lone and the wearied child;
And soft the arms that shield her own from harm;
And her look is unutterably mild --
But to-night, O Sea! thy cry is wild, so wild!

What ails thee, Sea? The midnight stars are bright --
How safe they lean on heaven's sinl...

Abram Joseph Ryan

By The Sea.

I started early, took my dog,
And visited the sea;
The mermaids in the basement
Came out to look at me,

And frigates in the upper floor
Extended hempen hands,
Presuming me to be a mouse
Aground, upon the sands.

But no man moved me till the tide
Went past my simple shoe,
And past my apron and my belt,
And past my bodice too,

And made as he would eat me up
As wholly as a dew
Upon a dandelion's sleeve --
And then I started too.

And he -- he followed close behind;
I felt his silver heel
Upon my ankle, -- then my shoes
Would overflow with pearl.

Until we met the solid town,
No man he seemed to know;
And bowing with a mighty look
At me, the sea withdrew.

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson

Amalfi

Sweet the memory is to me
Of a land beyond the sea,
Where the waves and mountains meet,
Where, amid her mulberry-trees
Sits Amalfi in the heat,
Bathing ever her white feet
In the tideless summer seas.

In the middle of the town,
From its fountains in the hills,
Tumbling through the narrow gorge,
The Canneto rushes down,
Turns the great wheels of the mills,
Lifts the hammers of the forge.

'T is a stairway, not a street,
That ascends the deep ravine,
Where the torrent leaps between
Rocky walls that almost meet.
Toiling up from stair to stair
Peasant girls their burdens bear;
Sunburnt daughters of the soil,
Stately figures tall and straight,
What inexorable fate
Dooms them to this life of toil?

Lord of vineyards...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow