The Slow Pacific Swell

Far out of sight forever stands the sea,

Bounding the land with pale tranquillity.

When a small child, I watched it from a hill

At thirty miles or more. The vision still

Lies in the eye, soft blue and far away:

The rain has washed the dust from April day;

Paint-brush and lupine lie against the ground;

The wind above the hill-top has the sound

Of distant water in unbroken sky;

Dark and precise the little steamers ply-

Firm in direction they seem not to stir.

That is illusion. The artificer

Of quiet, distance holds me in a vise

And holds the ocean steady to my eyes.

Once when I rounded Flattery, the sea

Hove its loose weight like sand to tangle me

Upon the washing deck, to crush the hull;

Subsiding, dragged flesh at the bone. The skull

Felt the retreating wash of dreaming hair.

Half drenched in dissolution, I lay bare.

I scarcely pulled myself erect; I came

Back slowly, slowly knew myself the same.

That was the ocean. From the ship we saw

Gray whales for miles: the long sweep of the jaw,

The blunt head plunging clean above the wave.

And one rose in a tent of sea and gave

A darkening shudder; water fell away;

The whale stood shining, and then sank in spray.

A landsman, I. The sea is but a sound.

I would be near it on a sandy mound,

And hear the steady rushing of the deep

While I lay stinging in the sand with sleep.

I have lived inland long. The land is numb.

It stands beneath the feet, and one may come

Walking securely, till the sea extends

Its limber margin, and precision ends.

By night a chaos of commingling power,

The whole Pacific hovers hour by hour.

The slow Pacific swell stirs on the sand,

Sleeping to sink away, withdrawing land,

Heaving and wrinkled in the moon, and blind;

Or gathers seaward, ebbing out of mind.

Copyright Credit: Yvor Winters, “The Slow Pacific Swell” from The Selected Poems of Yvor Winters, edited by R. L. Barth. Used by permission of Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio.

Source: The Collected Poems of Yvor Winters (1960)