Herman Melville

Pebbles

I

Though the Clerk of the Weather insist,
  And lay down the weather-law,
Pintado and gannet they wist
That the winds blow whither they list
  In tempest or flaw.

II

Old are the creeds, but stale the schools,
  Revamped as the mode may veer,
But Orm from the schools to the beaches
    strays
And, finding a Conch hoar with time, he
    delays
  And reverent lifts it to ear.
That Voice, pitched in far monotone,
  Shall it swerve? shall it deviate ever?
The Seas have inspired it, and Truth—
  Truth, varying from sameness never.

III

In hollows of the liquid hills
  Where the long Blue Ridges run,
The flattery of no echo thrills,
  For echo the seas have none;
Nor aught that gives man back man's strain—
The hope of his heart, the dream in his brain.

IV

On ocean where the embattled fleets repair,
Man, suffering inflictor, sails on sufferance
    there.

V

Implacable I, the old Implacable Sea:
  Implacable most when most I smile serene—
Pleased, not appeased, by myriad wrecks in
    me.

VI

Curled in the comb of yon billow Andean,
  Is it the Dragon's heaven-challenging crest?
Elemental mad ramping of ravening waters—
  Yet Christ on the Mount, and the dove in
    her nest!

VII

Healed of my hurt, I laud the inhuman Sea—
Yea, bless the Angels Four that there convene;
For healed I am ever by their pitiless breath
Distilled in wholesome dew named rosmarine.

Poems From Timoleon