This is the Sea. In these uneven walls A wave lies prisoned. Far and far away, Outward to ocean, as the slow tide falls, Her sisters, through the capes that hold the bay, Dancing in lovely liberty recede. But lovely in captivity she lies, Filled with soft colours, where the waving weed Moves gently, and discloses to our eyes Blurred shining veins of rock and lucent shells Under the light-shot water, and here repose Small quiet fish, and dimly-glowing bells Of sleeping sea-anemones that close Their tender fronds and will not now awake Till on these rocks the waves returning break.
The cove's a shining plate of blue and green, With darker belts between The trough and crest of the slow-rising swell, And the great rocks throw purple shadows down, Where transient sun-sparks wink and burst and drown And glimmering pebbles lie too deep to tell, Hidden or shining as the shadow wavers. And everywhere the restless sun-steeped air Trembles and quavers, As though it were More saturate with light than it could bear.
Now come the swimmers from slow-dripping caves, Where the shy fern creeps under the veined roof, And wading out meet with glad breast the waves. One holds aloof, Climbing alone the reef with shrinking feet, That scarce endure the jagged stones' dull beat Till on the edge he poises And flies to cleave the water, vanishing In wreaths of white, with echoing liquid noises, And swims beneath, a vague, distorted thing. Now all the other swimmers leave behind The crystal shallow and the foam-wet shore And sliding into deeper water find A living coolness in the lifting flood, And through their bodies leaps the sparkling blood, So that they feel the faint earth's drought no more. There now they float, heads raised above the green, White bodies cloudily seen, Farther and farther from the brazen rock, On which the hot air shakes, on which the tide Fruitlessly throws with gentle, soundless shock The cool and lagging wave. Out, out they go, And now upon a mirrored cloud they ride Or turning over, with soft strokes and slow, Slide on like shadows in a tranquil sky. Behind them, on the tall, parched cliff, the dry And dusty grasses grow In shallow ledges of the arid stone, Starving for coolness and the touch of rain. But, though to earth they must return again, Here come the soft sea-airs to meet them, blown Over the surface of the outer deep, Scarce moving, staying, falling, straying, gone, Light and delightful as the touch of sleep... One wakes and splashes round, And, as by magic, all the others wake From that sea-dream, and now with rippling sound Their rapid arms the enchanted silence break. And now again the crystal shallows take The gleaming bedies whose cool hour is done; They pause upon the beach, they pause and sigh Then vanish in the caverns one by one.