The Sea and the Hills

Who hath desired the Sea? — the sight of salt water unbounded —The heave and the halt and the hurl and the crash of the comber wind-hounded?

The sleek-barrelled swell before storm, grey, foamless, enormous, and growing —Stark calm on the lap of the Line or the crazy-eyed hurricane blowing —His Sea in no showing the same  his Sea and the same 'neath each showing:           His Sea as she slackens or thrills?

So and no otherwise — so and no otherwise — hillmen desire their Hills!

Who hath desired the Sea? — the immense and contemptuous surges?

The shudder, the stumble, the swerve, as the star-stabbing bow-sprit emerges?

The orderly clouds of the Trades, the ridged, roaring sapphire thereunder —Unheralded cliff-haunting flaws and the headsail's low-volleying thunder —His Sea in no wonder the same  his Sea and the same through each wonder:          His Sea as she rages or stills?

So and no otherwise — so and no otherwise — hillmen desire their Hills.

Who hath desired the Sea?

Her menaces swift as her mercies?

The in-rolling walls of the fog and the silver-winged breeze that disperses?

The unstable mined berg going South and the calvings and groans that declare it —White water half-guessed overside and the moon breaking timely to bare it —His Sea as his fathers have dared — his Sea as his children shall dare it:          His Sea as she serves him or kills?

So and no otherwise — so and no otherwise — hillmen desire their Hills.

Who hath desired the Sea?

Her excellent loneliness

Than forecourts of kings, and her outermost pits than the streets where men

Inland, among dust, under trees — inland where the slayer may slay him —Inland, out of reach of her arms, and the bosom whereon he must lay

His Sea from the first that betrayed — at the last that shall never betray him:          His Sea that his being fulfils?

So and no otherwise — so and no otherwise — hillmen desire their Hills.