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by
Robert Frost
Devotion
The heart can think of no devotion
Greater than being shore to the ocean--
Holding the curve of one position,
Counting an endless repetition.
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by
Emily Dickinson
Water, is taught by thirst.
Water, is taught by thirst.
Land -- by the Oceans passed.
Transport -- by throe --
Peace -- by its battles told --
Love, by Memorial Mold --
Birds, by the Snow.
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by
Emily Dickinson
We miss a Kinsman more
We miss a Kinsman more
When warranted to see
Than when withheld of Oceans
From possibility
A Furlong than a League
Inflicts a pricklier pain,
Till We, who smiled at Pyrenees --
Of Parishes, complain.
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by
Charles Bukowski
I Met A Genius
I met a genius on the train
today
about 6 years old,
he sat beside me
and as the train
ran down along the coast
we came to the ocean
and then he looked at me
and said,
it's not pretty.
it was the first time I'd
realized
that.
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by
Emily Dickinson
I think that the Root of the Wind is Water --
I think that the Root of the Wind is Water --
It would not sound so deep
Were it a Firmamental Product --
Airs no Oceans keep --
Mediterranean intonations --
To a Current's Ear --
There is a maritime conviction
In the Atmosphere --
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by
Robert Burns
236. Song—I Reign in Jeanie’s Bosom
LOUIS, what reck I by thee,
Or Geordie on his ocean?
Dyvor, beggar louns to me,
I reign in Jeanie’s bosom!
Let her crown my love her law,
And in her breast enthrone me,
Kings and nations—swith awa’!
Reif randies, I disown ye!
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by
Stevie Smith
Bag-Snatching In Dublin
Sisely
Walked so nicely
With footsteps so discreet
To see her pass
You'd never guess
She walked upon the street.
Down where the Liffey waters' turgid flood
Churns up to greet the ocean-driven mud,
A bruiser in fix
Murdered her for 6/6.
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by
Emily Dickinson
Fortitude incarnate
Fortitude incarnate
Here is laid away
In the swift Partitions
Of the awful Sea --
Babble of the Happy
Cavil of the Bold
Hoary the Fruition
But the Sea is old
Edifice of Ocean
Thy tumultuous Rooms
Suit me at a venture
Better than the Tombs
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by
Robert Burns
64. Fragment of Song—“My Jean!”
THO’ cruel fate should bid us part,
Far as the pole and line,
Her dear idea round my heart,
Should tenderly entwine.
Tho’ mountains, rise, and deserts howl,
And oceans roar between;
Yet, dearer than my deathless soul,
I still would love my Jean.
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by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
CALM AT SEA.
SILENCE deep rules o'er the waters,
Calmly slumb'ring lies the main,
While the sailor views with trouble
Nought but one vast level plain.
Not a zephyr is in motion!
Silence fearful as the grave!
In the mighty waste of ocean
Sunk to rest is ev'ry wave.
1795.
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by
Walter Savage Landor
Well I Remember How You Smiled
Well I remember how you smiled
To see me write your name upon
The soft sea-sand . . . "O! what a child!
You think you're writing upon stone!"
I have since written what no tide
Shall ever wash away, what men
Unborn shall read o'er ocean wide
And find Ianthe's name again.
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by
Katherine Mansfield
The Secret
In the profoundest ocean
There is a rainbow shell,
It is always there, shining most stilly
Under the greatest storm waves
That the old Greek called "ripples of laughter."
As you listen, the rainbow shell
Sings--in the profoundest ocean.
It is always there, singing most silently!
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by
Paul Laurence Dunbar
Old
I have seen peoples come and go
Alike the Ocean'd ebb and flow;
I have seen kingdoms rise and fall
Like springtime shadows on a wall.
I have seen houses rendered great
That grew from life's debased estate,
And all, all, all is change I see,
So, dearest God, take me, take me.
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by
Emily Dickinson
The Drop, that wrestles in the Sea
The Drop, that wrestles in the Sea --
Forgets her own locality --
As I -- toward Thee --
She knows herself an incense small --
Yet small -- she sighs -- if All -- is All --
How larger -- be?
The Ocean -- smiles -- at her Conceit --
But she, forgetting Amphitrite --
Pleads -- "Me"?
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by
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
BY THE RIVER.
FLOW on, ye lays so loved, so fair,
On to Oblivion's ocean flow!
May no rapt boy recall you e'er,
No maiden in her beauty's glow!
My love alone was then your theme,
But now she scorns my passion true.
Ye were but written in the stream;
As it flows on, then, flow ye too!
1798.*
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by
Eugene Field
A heine love song
The image of the moon at night
All trembling in the ocean lies,
But she, with calm and steadfast light,
Moves proudly through the radiant skies,
How like the tranquil moon thou art--
Thou fairest flower of womankind!
And, look, within my fluttering heart
Thy image trembling is enshrined!
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by
Carl Sandburg
Kin
BROTHER, I am fire
Surging under the ocean floor.
I shall never meet you, brother--
Not for years, anyhow;
Maybe thousands of years, brother.
Then I will warm you,
Hold you close, wrap you in circles,
Use you and change you--
Maybe thousands of years, brother.
Where the moon slants and wavers.
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by
Robert Bly
At Midocean
All day I loved you in a fever holding on to the tail of the horse.
I overflowed whenever I reached out to touch you.
My hand moved over your body covered
With its dress
Burning rough an animal's hand or foot moving over leaves.
The rainstorm retires clouds open sunlight
sliding over ocean water a thousand miles from land.
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by
Jack Spicer
Thing Language
This ocean, humiliating in its disguises
Tougher than anything.
No one listens to poetry. The ocean
Does not mean to be listened to. A drop
Or crash of water. It means
Nothing.
It
Is bread and butter
Pepper and salt. The death
That young men hope for. Aimlessly
It pounds the shore. White and aimless signals. No
One listens to poetry.
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by
Wanda Phipps
Morning Poem #43
I close my eyes
and there it is
a concrete walkway
leading out of a
small village
hugging the sides
of a green green
tree filled mountainside
and to the right
a pipe railing
paited the color
of oxidized metaland even firther
to my right
a small beach
costline-an ocean
all under a pale blue sky
all there when my eyelids
close and the shutters open
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by
Emily Dickinson
It tossed -- and tossed --
It tossed -- and tossed --
A little Brig I knew -- o'ertook by Blast --
It spun -- and spun --
And groped delirious, for Morn --
It slipped -- and slipped --
As One that drunken -- stept --
Its white foot tripped --
Then dropped from sight --
Ah, Brig -- Good Night
To Crew and You --
The Ocean's Heart too smooth -- too Blue --
To break for You --
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by
Coventry Patmore
Magna Est Veritas
Here, in this little Bay,
Full of tumultuous life and great repose,
Where, twice a day,
The purposeless, gay ocean comes and goes,
Under high cliffs, and far from the huge town,
I sit me down.
For want of me the world's course will not fail:
When all its work is done, the lie shall rot;
The truth is great, and shall prevail,
When none cares whether it prevail or not.
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by
Friedrich von Schiller
The Antique To The Northern Wanderer
Thou hast crossed over torrents, and swung through wide-spreading ocean,--
Over the chain of the Alps dizzily bore thee the bridge,
That thou might'st see me from near, and learn to value my beauty,
Which the voice of renown spreads through the wandering world.
And now before me thou standest,--canst touch my altar so holy,--
But art thou nearer to me, or am I nearer to thee?
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by
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Time
Unfathomable Sea! whose waves are years,
Ocean of Time, whose waters of deep woe
Are brackish with the salt of human tears!
Thou shoreless flood, which in thy ebb and flow
Claspest the limits of mortality,
And sick of prey, yet howling on for more,
Vomitest thy wrecks on its inhospitable shore;
Treacherous in calm, and terrible in storm,
Who shall put forth on thee,
Unfathomable Sea?
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by
Thomas Edward Brown
If Thou Could'st Empty All Thyself Of Self
If thou could'st empty all thyself of self,
Like to a shell dishabited,
Then might He find thee on the ocean shelf,
And say, "This is not dead,"
And fill thee with Himself instead.
But thou are all replete with very thou
And hast such shrewd activity,
That when He comes He says, "This is enow
Unto itself - 'twere better let it be,
It is so small and full, there is no room for me."
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