Escaping, yet never escaped, never utterly gone from reach;
Which is it? I ask and would know, as I watch at hand,
Here on the beach.
To-night they seem weary of warfare, these ancient foes,
Weary of love as of hate; of eddying kisses or blows;
Even as we, as I, grow weary of eddying thought,
Of the waves of the mind, of the soul and its foam-like woes,
Rising unsought.
The sea’s mood to-night has changed, has grown simple and mild
It draws in the land to its breast as a nurse draws a child,