Song by the Sea

I stand beside the gray salt sea
and hear its gentle call so clear.
I turn to look in front of me
while whirling waves delight my ear.

A quavering air upon the wind,
a voice almost remembered...
I've heard the little cricket crying, the bees that
        buzz so brave, the cat that cries through wandering night,
        the humming machines that make dark light,
        and voices (such voices!) from earth's every corner.
But this? Nothing like this!
Not the cry of a crow or the woof of a wolf, not the
        saddened serpent's sigh, no ballads of birdsong or
        lull of the lamb... no, nothing, never like this.
No, not ever.

Far off beyond my range of sight,
as if it truly came from air,
so faint a voice, that struck me right
so that it laid my dreams quite bare.

So softly she sang,
that voice on the wind, that voice my nerves well know...
So soft...
I feared to lose...
Have you heard the bell that tells the hour,
and tolls the turn of time? It's found me, at times,
seated by the city with a stack of leaves,
the waning bell-toll sighing out time's death-rattle.
And the sound would stir my soul, my spirit, my mind
so deeply that I could not
shake away the gloom of that bell.
At the sound of that voice, her voice, that distant song
from I know not where, faint on the wind,
hourglass sighs,
salt sweat dripping to waves...
(Slipping, always slipping!)
Her song pierced my heart, and I thought
I heard the ringing
of that impossible bell.

"You wanderer beside the shore,
who goes searching without finding,
you'll find me on the ocean's floor,
as I think you need reminding."

Or did she sing quite differently,
beyond my understanding?
Does fate leave riddles for us, or dream of
        riddles from dreams of fate from dreams of mortal life?
I lost her, that's enough, Lost now. Perhaps I'll find her
        by fate, or riddles on the shore
        of meetings on the wide sea's floor.