The calling of the sea
Hark! The voice of the Ocean is calling,
With an insistence
Sad and appalling,
Scorning resistance,
Out from the steepness
Of the great deepness
Lying in fathoms below that cold dress;
Where, in their starkness,
Smothered in darkness,
Like the dead, seeming
Silently dreaming,
Clasped in the strength of the Ocean’s caress.
What are the words said?
Have any caught them?
Are they the whisperings of the long-dead?
List, while the tides stem,
Liquid and sable,
Over the cable,
Sobbing and moaning some solemn decree.Listen at midnight,
Over the lee-rail,
Under the moonlight,
Unto the sad wail;
Listen – be still!
Chance thus some mariner gather at will
Some tiny gleaning
Of the deep meaning,
Spoken forever,
Understood never,
In the low voice that calls out on his lee,
In the sad voice that cries out in the wake,
In that wild calling so cold and so dree.
Still, as the years go,
Lonely ships sailing
(Under the lee-strake)
Hear that slow wailing
Rise from below;
Yet none is able,
On the wide Ocean,
O’er the great surface of the deep sea,
Tossed by the motion
Of its wild waters,
Now, or forever, to tell unto me
What it is saying,
Jeering or praying,
Or whispering warnings
Unto its daughters
Of somber dawnings
Ushering mornings
Pregnant with terrors the dead only see.
William Hope Hodgson (Blackmore End, Essex, Inglaterra, 1877 – Ypres, Bélgica,1918). Novelista, autor de relatos, poeta y ensayista.