Explore "The Swimmer" by Edwina Stanton Babcock on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Tonight the ocean calls, / The stars respond, wide-scattered through the skies; / Swift through the cool of curling wave he hies, / Who swims far out, nor sees the shore receding -- / Only his strength, his long bold measures heeding.
Proud in his power, strong, / From hateful touch of hands that haunt him, free / He plunges forward through dark wastes of sea, / Passionate in the careless joy of roaming / Through billowed gulfs, forgetful of his homing.
Tranced in the summer night, / Lying far out on the high-breasted deep, / He dreams alone. Lo! In illumined sleep, / White Naiads gleam in dim sea-groves and hollows, / Under the tide-drawn heaving path he follows.
Until the stars slip down, / And to far shores the pale night drifts away; / Then he turns back to meet the break of day, / Through the broad surges in blind rapture leaping, / Until he feels the sand and the foam creeping.