A Spring Harvest/Sea Poppies

by Geoffrey Bache Smith

SEA POPPIES

'Twixt lonely lands and desert beach,
Where no wind blows and no waves reach,
A sunken precinct here we keep,
With woven wiles of endless sleep;
Our twisted stems of sere-hued green,
Our pallid blooms what sun has seen?
And he that tastes our magic breath
Shall sleep that sleep whose name is death.

Wild clouds are scurrying overhead,
The wild wind's voice is loud and dread,
Sounding the knell of the dying day,
Yet here is silence and gloom alway.
And a great longing seizes me
To burst my bondage and be free,
To look on winds' and waters' strife,
And breathe in my nostrils the breath of life.
Give me not dim and slumbrous ease,
But sounding storm and labouring seas,
Not peaceful and untroubled years,
But toil and warfare and passion and tears.
And I would fall in valorous fight,
And lie on lofty far-seen height.

Yet how to burst these prison-bands,
Forged by unseen spirit-hands?

O seek not to burst our prison bands
Forged by unseen spirit-hands.
Clashing battle and labouring sea,
 These be for others, not for thee.
Thou lover of storm and passion and war
Break'st our charmed circle never more.