You, you are all unloving, loveless, you;      Restless and lonely, shaken by your own moods,
     You are celibate¹ and single, scorning a comrade even,
     Threshing your own passions with no woman for
        the threshing-floor,
     Finishing your dreams for your own sake only,
     Playing your great game around the world, alone,
     Without playmate, or helpmate, having no one to
        cherish,
     No one to comfort, and refusing any comforter.
 
     Not like the earth, the spouse² all full of increase
     Moiled over with the rearing of her many-mouthed
        young;
     You are single, you are fruitless, phosphorescent,
        cold and callous³,
     Naked of worship, of love or of adornment⁴,
     Scorning the panacea⁵ even of labour,
     Sworn to a high and splendid purposelessness
     Of brooding and delighting in the secret of life's
        goings,
     Sea, only you are free, sophisticated.
 
     You who toil⁶ not, you who spin not,
     Surely but for you and your like, toiling⁷
     Were not worth while, nor spinning worth the
        effort!
 
     You who take the moon as in a sieve⁸, and sift⁹
     Her flake¹⁰ by flake and spread her meaning out;
     You who roll the stars like jewels in your palm,
     So that they seem to utter themselves aloud;
     You who steep from out the days their colour,
     Reveal the universal tint¹¹ that dyes
     Their web; who shadow the sun's great gestures
        and expressions
     So that he seems a stranger in his passing;
     Who voice the dumb night fittingly;
     Sea, you shadow of all things, now mock us to
        death with your shadowing.
 
       BOURNEMOUTH