The Sea, The Sea
Feb. 2nd, 2026 07:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poliphilo Every day- in the dawn- flocks of starlings fly through our air space, heading inland. Then in the evening they follow the same flight path back towards the sea. My guess is they spend the night roosting on- or rather under- the pier; all those struts and girders like a man-made forest.
We were talking about the sea at the lunch party on Saturday and I dug a quote from Swinburne from the memory banks. Yesterday I looked it up and found I'd misquoted.
Swinburne wrote:
"I will go back to the great sweet mother,
Mother and lover of men, the sea"
And I had rememered it as
"I will go back to the great grey mother,
Mother of gods and men, the sea."
Actually I think my version is an improvement. The sea isn't "sweet", "grey" is much better- more evocative, and I think "mother of gods and men" has the edge over the original.....
We were talking about the sea at the lunch party on Saturday and I dug a quote from Swinburne from the memory banks. Yesterday I looked it up and found I'd misquoted.
Swinburne wrote:
"I will go back to the great sweet mother,
Mother and lover of men, the sea"
And I had rememered it as
"I will go back to the great grey mother,
Mother of gods and men, the sea."
Actually I think my version is an improvement. The sea isn't "sweet", "grey" is much better- more evocative, and I think "mother of gods and men" has the edge over the original.....
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Date: 2026-02-02 08:27 am (UTC)I do like your version better. I think it has a touch of Kipling in it, or Eliot.
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Date: 2026-02-02 11:06 am (UTC)Thinking about it, I believe I unconsciously imported "grey" from Kipling's "Harp Song of the Dane Women".
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Date: 2026-02-02 11:07 am (UTC)That's what it made me think of, but I love that poem and you might as well steal from the best.
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Date: 2026-02-02 12:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2026-02-02 01:59 pm (UTC)