Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Carl Sandburg (1878–1967). Chicago Poems. 1916.

110. Young Sea

THE SEA is never still.

It pounds on the shore

Restless as a young heart,

Hunting.

The sea speaks

And only the stormy hearts

Know what it says:

It is the face

of a rough mother speaking.

The sea is young.

One storm cleans all the hoar

And loosens the age of it.

I hear it laughing, reckless.

They love the sea,

Men who ride on it

And know they will die

Under the salt of it

Let only the young come,

Says the sea.

Let them kiss my face

And hear me.

I am the last word

And I tell

Where storms and stars come from.