Idyll of Forgetfulness

. . . I have known the mystery of the sea to be mantled about me;

I have felt the silk wind brush my lips;

I have made my throat an arbour for forgotten songs.

The sea has been breeze-serene sapphire,

And blue-tipped birds have rippled it,

And the sun has smoothed it with quiet fire,

And I have reflected its colours in the peace of my eyes;

It has been vague, and made of shadow,

With little, odd mists waved in the path of its echo,

When everything slept and the smell of the waves was strange;

The foam has lingered into white, little flowers,

And changed with the wind into indistinct patterns of frolic,

And my fingers have touched the glass of the waters, and hours made little I have dipped my arms in their rapture;

Little white-lipped faces have peered up at me,

And eyes have been grove-green catching mine from the depth of the silence. . . .

Hidden in delicate drifts of mist are they that beckon,

They of the pale, sea-wan beauty, they who are home

With the pale-green, delicate fishes, silver as sighs,

Their voices are dim; they have passed,

In the carpeting of the dusk, obscurely and elusively,

Enveloping themselves in the laden eve.

--Dylan Thomas