A thousand miles beyond this sun-steeped wall
   Somewhere the waves creep cool along the sand,
   The ebbing tide forsakes the listless land
With the old murmur, long and musical;
The windy waves mount up and curve and fall,
   And round the rocks the foam blows up like snow,—
   Tho’ I am inland far, I hear and know,
For I was born the sea’s eternal thrall.
I would that I were there and over me
   The cold insistence of the tide would roll,
   Quenching this burning thing men call the soul,—
Then with the ebbing I should drift and be
   Less than the smallest shell along the shoal,
Less than the sea-gulls calling to the sea.