Archibald MacLeish

“ As like, he said, as what we see of it
Is like and wider than the unseen sea—
Wider because the sea's not infinite
But banked and shored from possibility,
While what we see, because we cannot know
From maps or charts how far it should extend,
Is greater than the ocean and may flow
Over horizons till horizons end.
You have no bounds to me but my defect
Of eyes to see if there is more beyond,
And if I watch as they do who expect
Some sign, some drift of green, some lily frond
Borne out of unknown Indies in the west,
I watch your sea for shores you've not confessed. ”

“ As though he stood upon the farthest shore
Of wonder and awaited there the bloom
Of moonrise on the sea. O, surely here,
Here in this heart of silence he should find
That something sought which now as he came near
Was like moonrise and music in his mind.
Here, surely here, his very flesh should know
Beauty that has no knowledge in the flesh,
And beauty known within that mortal mesh
Should be immortal and true beauty show. ”

“ Have you seen citadels glance in the sunset, and towers?
Have you seen castles of glint and of gossamer spun?
These, only these, were the heights, these hills grown with flowers,
⁠These were the gates of the sun.
There is no music but this, no loveliness other,—
Only the reaching of arms and the rose of a breast,
Only a girl's throat—beyond this earth ends and seas smother,
⁠And the old moon fades in the west.
There is no land beyond and no shore and no ocean,
Nothing but night and the moon and the cold thin air ”