by Peter Miles
The boom of the surf again in rising wind….
For a long while now I have been remembering
That stark sweet music in continuous
Crescendo on the lonely beach, deep leit-motif
Of something old, old as wandering
Rack-misted moon-
So, aged ghost, you come again with pale
Uncomment, haunting? You remember
When the live sea swelled and you,
Perpetually clouded, strained
Those rhythms into protoplasm even now I feel
In my brief consciousness, drowned memory
Emerging: here
Is the vast beginning of things, the empty theatre.
We are not strangers, you and I, old
Murmerer: I hear your thundering
Through cities and the superficial chatter, hear
Plain statements and the high strong manifesto sung
In sea winds.
Peter Miles (1945)