We live by the sea, but I have to say it’s not a very interesting sea; we live at the south end of a very long bay just at the end of several estuaries of big rivers, so although we do have sand, we have an awful lot of mud too. The sea is technically clean, but the gritty, sandy particles make it look a grubby grey brown colour. it’s not very inspiring to walk beside, although we do get nice sunsets, facing west as we do. I love walking by the sea, but not our sea. I love walking by a splashy lively sea, a sea with plenty of action, and waves…
I wonder what the sea was like that Hiram Ladd Spencer walked beside? He was a Canadian poet born in America in 1829, and dying at the grand old age eighty-six.
Upon the beach I walked at eve alone
And listened to the moaning of the sea,
And watched the sails that in the moonlight shone
As the horizon. Straightway unto me
There came a voice, as from below the waves:
“The less’ning sail will soon be seen no more,
And as I sweep thy footprints from the shore,
Time mosses o’er a world of unknown graves.
And it is well. If men could not forget,
With phantoms all the world would peopled be;
The ghosts of buried joys their hearts would fret–
A flood of tears, like blood, would drown the sea.
Rail not at Time–the healer of thy woes–
As of those thou hast forgotten, shall be thy last repose.
Hiram Ladd Spencer
Lois Elsden 