This one is dedicated to My Girl Friday, who is soon to make her own pilgrimage to the beach.

I discovered this poem when I was 19.  My mother and I were renting a house in Lake-of-the-Woods, Virginia, from some State Department Washingtons who had lived there before us.  The basement had rows of old books; one was of English literature.  There wasn’t another kid my age in sight, all summer.  Hell, I don’t think that there was another PERSON in sight when my Mom was at work.  Lake-of-the-Woods was an INCREDIBLY quiet community.

I’ve loved the poem ever since, even if I might better enjoy the various abridged versions that I have seen.

Anyway, my 20-something friends, before the Internet, we had basement books to entertain us during solitary summers.  AND WE WERE THANKFUL FOR WHAT WE HAD.

“On The Verge,” by Algernon Swinburne

Here begins the sea that ends not

till the world’s end. Where we stand,
Could we know the next high sea-mark
set beyond these waves that gleam,
We should know what never man hath
known, nor eye of man hath scanned.
Nought beyond these coiling clouds
that melt like fume of shrines that steam
Breaks or stays the strength of waters
till they pass our bounds of dream.
Where the waste Land’s End leans westward,
all the seas it watches roll
Find their border fixed beyond them,
and a worldwide shore’s control:
These whereby we stand no shore
beyond us limits: these are free.
Gazing hence, we see the water
that grows iron round the Pole,
From the shore that hath no shore
beyond it set in all the sea.

Sail on sail along the sea-line
fades and flashes; here on land
Flash and fade the wheeling wings
on wings of mews that plunge and scream.
Hour on hour along the line
of life and time’s evasive strand
Shines and darkens, wanes and waxes,
slays and dies: and scarce they seem
More than motes that thronged and trembled
in the brief noon’s breath and beam.
Some with crying and wailing, some
with notes like sound of bells that toll,
Some with sighing and laughing, some
with words that blessed and made us whole,
Passed, and left us, and we know not
what they were, nor what were we.
Would we know, being mortal? Never
breath of answering whisper stole
From the shore that hath no shore
beyond it set in all the sea.

Shadows, would we question darkness?
Ere our eyes and brows be fanned
Round with airs of twilight, washed
with dews from sleep’s eternal stream,
Would we know sleep’s guarded secret?
Ere the fire consume the brand,
Would it know if yet its ashes
may requicken? yet we deem
Surely man may know, or ever
night unyoke her starry team,
What the dawn shall be, or if
the dawn shall be not, yea, the scroll
Would we read of sleep’s dark scripture,
pledge of peace or doom of dole.
Ah, but here man’s heart leaps, yearning
toward the gloom with venturous glee,
Though his pilot eye behold
nor bay nor harbour, rock nor shoal,
From the shore that hath no shore
beyond it set in all the sea.

Friend, who knows if death indeed
have life or life have death for goal?
Day nor night can tell us, nor
may seas declare nor skies unroll
What has been from everlasting,
or if aught shall always be.
Silence answering only strikes
response reverberate on the soul
From the shore that hath no shore
beyond it set in all the sea.