Sea-music / Babette Deutsch

Sea-music
There is a place of bitter memories Dreary and wide and lonely as the sea, Foaming and moaning; there they come to me Like wild gulls crying sea-taught monodies: Iron-winged hours, heavy, heavy with dread; Dawn after death; the sound of a shut door; And shining love that has a withered core; The eyes of those who fight and starve for bread. There is doom, and change, and silence, and denying; Memories of these pluck at the heart of me. And over the bitter roar of the old dumb sea The air is filled with the noise of wild gulls crying.