Sea Breezes

after Mallarmé

I shut the door. It's sad. I've read the books.
I want to leave, like shrieking gulls that soar
above the berthed yachts lining the shore.
Nothing, not lush back gardens, tended brooks,
reflected in these eyes that scan the sea
tonight, not the faint glow of a reading light
upon a page which stays forever white,
no, nor a wife, our child upon her knee,
shall, while the masts are swaying, sway my heart.
I long to lift my anchor and depart.

A listlessness, disdained by cruel hopes,
recalls those waving, handkerchiefs in hands.
And, perhaps, those masts a storm might fling
and whisk through windblown waves of curling slopes
are lost, at last, those masts, near fertile lands.
But hear, my heart, but hear the sailors sing.