The Five Nations (Complete)

Who hath desired the Sea?the sight of salt water unboundedThe 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 growingStark calm on the lap of the Line or the crazy-eyed hurricane blowingHis Sea in no showing the samehis Sea and the same 'neath each showingHis Sea as she slackens or thrills? So and no otherwiseso 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 bowsprit emerges? The orderly clouds of the Trades, and the ridged, roaring sapphire thereunderUnheralded cliff-haunting flaws and the headsail's low-volleying thunderHis Sea in no wonder the samehis Sea and the same through each wonder: His Sea as she rages or stills? So and no otherwiseso 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 daredhis Sea as his children shall dare itHis Sea as she serves him or kills? So and no otherwiseso and no otherwise hillmen desire their Hills. Who hath desired the Sea? Her excellent loneliness rather Than forecourts of kings, and her outermost pits than the streets where men gather Inland, among dust, under treesinland where the slayer may slay himInland, out of reach of her arms, and the bosom whereon he must lay himHis Sea at the first that betrayedat the last that shall never betray him His Sea that his being fulfils? So and no otherwiseso and no otherwise hillmen desire their Hills.

Dettagli