A Reed by the River/Of the Sea

by Virginia Woodward Cloud

OF THE SEA

Let us go down to the sea, ere the noisy day be over,
Let us go down to the sea, and strip us of care and of toil;
There are graves in the heart of man that only the sea can cover,
There are deeds in the life of man to be sown as the deep sea spoil.

Flee from the surging of sound, that urges us on to the morrow,
Wrest from the merciless round that returns with the birth of the sun,
Free us of harassing thought, and the wind's wild pinion borrow,
Yet there is room for the heart where the wind and the wave are born.

And the grief which lieth behind let us give to the grace of forgetting,
And the faith that is dimmed let us shrive with the clean, keen salt of the sea,
And the fruitless doubt let us fling beyond the bound of regretting,
Where only the wave and the sky and the soul of man may be.

Earth, the mother hath balm for her world-stained sons and daughters,
Earth, the mother, hath balm for her toil-spent hearts and sad,
Time cannot curb nor deny God's bountiful boon of waters,—
Let us down to the sea, my soul, let us down to the sea and be glad!