Sonnet: To the Sea

O senseless Sea, how long shall men proclaim
Thy freedom and thy power! Slave of the Moon,
Thy wrath is borrowed of the wind, the Noon
Supplies thy smiles, thy life is but a name
That poets use. To thee nor praise nor blame
Belongs. And yet shall man, alas, not soon
Forget to fear thee, and thy dim halls strewn
With bones of bravest man and fairest dame.
The careless fish within thee sport and breed,
The bird above thee spreads her scornful wing:
Yet thou, more lifeless than thy weakest weed,
Canst shake the very soul of Priest and King.
And aye to man thy breathless breast appears
A waste of sighs, a wilderness of tears.