Arthur Symons: Verses about Sea

Because it is the day of Palms,
Carry a palm for me,
Carry a palm in Santa Chiara,
And I will watch the sea;
There are no palms in Santa Chiara
To-day or any day for me.

I sit and watch the little sail
Lean side-ways on the sea,
The sea is blue from here to Sorrento,
And the sea-wind comes to me,
And I see the white clouds lift from Sorrento
And the dark sail lean upon the sea.

I have grown tired of all these things,
And what is left for me?
I have no place in Santa Chiara,
There is no peace upon the sea;
But carry a palm in Santa Chiara,
Carry a palm for me.

If I could know but when and why
This piece of thoughtless dust begins
To think, and straightway I am I,
And these bright hopes and these brave sins,
That have been freer than the air,
Circle their freedom with my span;
If I could know but why this care
Is mine and not the care or man;
Why, thus unwilling, I rejoice,
And will the good I do not do,
And with the same particular voice
Speak the old folly and the new;
If I could know, seeing my soul
A white ship with a bending sail,
Rudderless, and without a goal,
Fly seaward, humble to the gale,
Why, knowing not from whence I came,
Nor why I seek I know not what,
I bear this heavy, separate name,
While winds and waters bear it not;
And why the unlimited earth delights
In life, not knowing breath from breath,
While I, that count my days and nights,
Fear thought in life, and life in death.

Here in a city made for love
I wander loveless and alone,
Longing for the unknown,
Desiring one thing only, and above
Desire in love with love.

The beauty of the starlight dies
Over the city, as a flower
Droops, an unheeded hour;
Ah! barren beauty, when no lovelier eyes
Behold it as it dies.

I wander loveless and alone,
Alone with memory: she sings
Of other wanderings;
Even London half-divine, had I but known
What 'tis to be alone.

Had I but known! Could I but know
If here, or here, for surely here
The answer waits my ear,
Some lips my lips, some hands my hands; but oh,
Could these, could I, but know!

We seek each other, can I doubt?
For man is man, and woman kind,
And he who seeks shall find,
World without end; but how to ravel out
The inextricable doubt?

I am a shipwrecked sailor, lost
For lack of water on the sea:
Water, but none for me;
Water, but I, thirsting and fever-tossed,
In much abundance lost.