The Secret of the Sea (Poem by Edwin John Dove Pratt)

The Secret of the Sea

By Edwin John Dove Pratt

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.