SEA and LAND

 SMOOTH between SEA and LAND
                              by  A.E. Housman (1859-1936)

 Smooth between sea and land
Is laid the yellow sand,

 And here through summer days

 Here the child comes to found
His unremaining mound,

 And the grown lad to score

 Two names upon the shore.

 Here, on the level sand,
Between the sea and land,

 What shall I build or write

 Against the fall of night?

 Tell me of runes to grave
That hold the bursting wave,

 Or bastions to design
For longer date than mine.

 Shall it be Troy or Rome
I fence against the foam,

 Or my own name, to stay
When I depart for aye?

 Nothing: too near at hand,

 Planing the figure sand,

 Effacing clean and fast

 Cities not built to last
And charms devised in vain,

 Pours the confounding main.

 Photographs 2019 M. Woods/Morgan Woods  Miracle Beach, Mt. Washington, Discovery passage.