Sea Song

'Tis the joy of joys, O restless sea
With the wind in my hair, and thou at the foot
of the rocks encrusted with barnacles,
to hear the plunge, the breathless pause,
the roar as thy swirling waters retreat,
and snarling crouch and plunge again
with wild, ecstatic, flying foam;
To see the leathery bands of the weeds
swaying in the depths below;
To watch the seagulls proudly wheel
and dart and flash and screech and poise
aloft in the quivering sunlit air;
To gaze across the grey-blue water
away to the misty grey-blue sky
and up to the soft and feathery clouds
that high in the wind go streaming by
in the wind that whips the blood in the cheek
to tingling life, as I stand on the top
of the crusted barnacled rocks. - O this
is the joy of joys, O restless sea!