Poems (Mansfield)/Sea Song

by Katherine Mansfield

SEA SONG

I will think no more of the sea!
Of the big green waves
And the hollowed shore,
Of the brown rock caves
No more, no more
Of the swell and the weed
And the bubbling foam.

Memory dwells in my far away home,
She has nothing to do with me.

She is old and bent
With a pack
On her back.
Her tears all spent,
Her voice, just a crack.
With an old thorn stick
She hobbles along,
And a crazy song
Now slow, now quick
Wheeks in her throat.

And every day
While there's light on the shore
She searches for something,
Her withered claw
Tumbles the seaweed;
She pokes in each shell
Groping and mumbling
Until the night
Deepens and darkens,
And covers her quite,
And bids her be silent,
And bids her be still.

The ghostly feet
Of the whispery waves
Tiptoe beside her.
They follow, follow
To the rocky caves
In the white beach hollow . . .
She hugs her hands,
She sobs, she shrills,
And the echoes shriek
In the rocky hills.
She moans: "It is lost!
Let it be! Let it be!
I am old. I'm too cold.
I am frightened . . . the sea
Is too loud . . . it is lost,
It is gone . . ." Memory
Wails in my far away home. 1913.