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Home  »  The New Poetry  »  Watching by a Sick-Bed

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

Watching by a Sick-Bed

By John Masefield

I HEARD the wind all day,

And what it was trying to say.

I heard the wind all night

Rave as it ran to fight;

After the wind the rain,

And then the wind again

Running across the hill

As it runs still.

And all day long the sea

Would not let the land be,

But all night heaped her sand

On to the land;

I saw her glimmer white

All through the night,

Tossing the horrid hair

Still tossing there.

And all day long the stone

Felt how the wind was blown;

And all night long the rock

Stood the sea’s shock;

While, from the window, I

Looked out, and wondered why,

Why at such length

Such force should fight such strength.