[BNP/E3, 49A2 – 38-40]

9/5/10

Oh emerald herald of freedom,

     Thou clamour of joy oh sea

Thou pure {…} deed, whom

     Thy freedom leaves unspoilt of glee.

Sum-name of ceaseless oceans

     White-echoing at hollow caves

Thy each wave is a thousand motions

     On a thousand forgotten graves,

We see thee and among our emotions

    There is a none that remembers or raves

And those dead that they deep made stainless

    In the beautiful |death|[1] they died

Are their souls flung up pained or painless

    In the turn or return of the[2] tide?

[38v]

2

In thy heart where no {…} is rotten,

     For thy soul is the soul of the sea,

Is no shade of remembrance begotten

     No form of it for eyes[3] see?

Must our souls out-forget[4] the forgotten

     In remembering’s possibility?

It is so and it must be, our gazing

     Knows[5] nothing to thoughts and to dreams,

When the sun is a vision blazing

     We bask at our eyes in thy gleams;

When the evening aslant ungladdens

     They limitless trembling of waves,

When the moon with dark whiteness saddens

     Thy foam at the mouths of caves.

[39r]

3.

If our heart a vague pinning maddens,

     It is not for thy dead[6] it raves.

[40r]

II.

We are fools unto surface and splendour

     We are children to motion and joy,

Things a thought for their soul but engender

     When their custom has known how to cloy.

But thou, oh unvaried in varying,

     Thou vision of freedom that art

In constancy even unwearying

     For having at thy surface for[7] heart,

Thou cloyest not ever, e’er marrying

     The balm of thy {…} to thy dart.

               (dipped)

[40v]

Like the spirit of music that widens

     The life and the meaning of earth

Till the thought of all wi[…]r

     The soul {…} at its birth

     (The {…} dearth) 

 
[1] |death| /after-a life\
[2] the /thy\
[3] eyes /eyes may\
[4] out/†\-forget
[5] Knows /Tells\
[6] thy dead /(that)\
[7] for /a\