Edwin John Dove Pratt

The Secret of the Sea

Tell me thy secret, O Sea,
    The mystery sealed in thy breast;
Come, breathe it in whispers to me,
    A child of thy fevered unrest.

It's midnight, and from me has sleep
    Flown afar, like a bird on the wing,
All tired is my heart as I weep
    Through a winter that knows not a spring.

Why dost thou respond to my plea
    With only a minor refrain?
Thy voice in a moan floats to me,
    As an echo sobbed from my pain.

Hast thou a grief, too, like mine,
    That never heals with the years;
A bosom entombing a shrine
    Bedewed with the waste of thy tears?

Where lies my loved one to-night
    Beneath thy grey mantle so wide?
I would that his slumber were light,
    To wake with the flow of the tide.

Should he not wake, bear him this,
    An amaranth plucked from my heart;
Wreathe it soft in his dreams with a kiss,
    Then return, and ere I depart.

On the flood of my soul's overflow.
    Borne on by my grief from the wild
Of this storm-beaten life, let me know
    How he slept; let me know if he smiled.