The Sea Spirit by Madison Julius Cawein

Ah me! I shall not waken soon
From dreams of such divinity!
A spirit singing ‘neath the moon
To me.

Wild sea-spray driven of the storm
Is not so wildly white as she,
Who beckoned with a foam-white arm
To me.

With eyes dark green, and golden-green
Long locks that rippled drippingly,
Out of the green wave she did lean
To me.

And sang; till Earth and Heaven seemed
A far, forgotten memory,
And more than Heaven in her who gleamed
On me.

Sleep, sweeter than love’s face or home;
And death’s immutability;
And music of the plangent foam,
For me!

Sweep over her! with all thy ships,
With all thy stormy tides, O sea! –
The memory of immortal lips
For me!

Note: This poem is in the public domain and can be found here. Madison Julius Cawein (1865-1914) was a poet from Louisville, Kentucky. A year before his death, Cawein published a poem called “Waste Land” that scholars say may have been the inspiration for T.S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land.

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Buried Treasure (a poem)

Buried deep in this sea, there is ancient treasure –

it’s been hidden for ages, from a sunken ship

that carried gold and human remains,

but all that remains

are brittle bones, skulls + chests filled with fortune –

I’ll dive deep + discover it, even if it kills me,

bring it back to this sandy shore so I can

explore this coastline dotted with land mines

from a distant war – the war that took my father + tore

this island nation to pieces: the woman wailing,

lonely in their huts without their husbands +

the children afraid of the night

when mutant-men prowl swamplands of death

+ devour human and beast alike.

(Photo by Max Okhrimenko on Unsplash)