By the Sea by Christina Georgina Rossetti
The speaker questions the sea's ceaseless moaning and portrays its thirst as unquenched by rivers. Its hidden bed holds thriving anemones, varied shells, and creatures born and dying without pain.
By Christina Georgina Rossetti · Genre: Nature Poetry, Descriptive Poetry · 147 words
First lines
Why does the sea moan evermore? / Shut out from heaven it makes its moan. / It frets against the boundary shore; / All earth's full rivers cannot fill / The sea, that drinking thirsteth still.
Sheer miracles of loveliness / Lie hid in its unlooked-on bed: / Anemones, salt, passionless, / Blow flower-like; just enough alive / To blow and multiply and thrive.
Shells quaint with curve, or spot, or spike, / Encrusted live things argus-eyed, / All fair alike, yet all unlike, / Are born without a pang, and die / Without a pang, -- and so pass by.
Genres
- Nature Poetry — Three rhymed stanzas describe the sea, anemones, shells, and marine creatures.
- Descriptive Poetry — The underwater stanzas detail flower-like anemones and shells distinguished by curves, spots, and spikes.
Tags
sea · marine life · anemones · shells · thirst · birth and death
What this Textopian page supports
By the Sea is listed on Textopian as a poem by Christina Georgina Rossetti, dated Date unknown.
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- Work type: Poem
- Author: Christina Georgina Rossetti
- Date: Date unknown
- Language: English
- Genres: Nature Poetry, Descriptive Poetry
- Length: 147 words
- Structure: 1 section, 3 paragraphs
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