Greeter Of All Adventurers Poem by Annie Cordelia Adams

When I walked in desert sands and crossed mounds of dust,
I coughed and nearly choked on scorching heat to shame
My eyes found no rest from the beam of the sunlight,
My lips were of no poetry, and hungered for, the least, tears
I struggled to lift my legs; but I went on, for I knew I must
My feet were anchors, pulling me to the floor to tame
Perhaps out of some misery, I thought that I should recite
Of the plays I’ve read, and poems I’ve rehearsed over years

Perhaps that would waste the day so that I would forget time
Time was a shadow, creeping swiftly over my steps in race
It was that I had only so many steps to take before I fell
The sun had shot fire on my back for centuries and epochs
It seemed, I walked upon a sea of fire, and my body a sublime
Air expanded and my breath drew a quick and heavy pace
I swore I heard a cloud, and with swift strokes, ‘rain, ’ it spelt
Suddenly, my mind awoke, and I glared upward at the clock

A rapid, beating wind threw sand in my face, but I harkened
Twenty-thousand tiny rocks found the palm of my hand
And fifty-million, my eyes, with which I saw the horizon
In the beautiful flat of the earth, waves came toward me
The haughty ocean from afar, was, in the midst of drums, a violin
The music charmed my ears and I imagined the others in the band
A piano, the twinkling stars; when the sun went down, they’d begun
An Horn, the great and mighty wind; how it roared with jubilee!

I finally sought out the waters edge and it was waiting with a kiss
The Sea was once the greeter of all adventurers and finders of bliss
The Sea was a great pretender, who mentioned no havoc of time
But the Sea changes time like the moon changes harvest and the tide