Poems (Rossetti, 1901)/By the Sea
For works with similar titles, see By the Sea.
BY THE SEA.
WHY does the sea moan evermore? Shut out from heaven it makes its moan, It frets against the boundary shore; All earth's full rivers cannot fill The sea, that drinking thirsteth still.
Sheer miracles of loveliness Lie hid in its unlooked-on bed: Anemones, salt, passionless, Blow flower-like; just enough alive To blow and multiply and thrive.
Shells quaint with curve, or spot, or spike? Encrusted live things argus-eyed, All fair alike, yet all unlike, Are born without a pang, and die Without a pang, and so pass by.