The Open Sea

From my window I can see,  
Where the sandhills dip,  
One far glimpse of open sea.  
Just a slender slip  
Curving like a crescent moon—          
Yet a greater prize  
Than the harbour garden-fair  
Spread beneath my eyes.  
 
Just below me swings the bay,  
Sings a sunny tune,          
But my heart is far away  
Out beyond the dune;  
Clearer far the sea-gulls’ cry  
And the breakers’ roar,  
Than the little waves beneath          
Lapping on the shore.  
 
For that strip of sapphire sea  
Set against the sky  
Far horizons means to me—  
And the ships go by          
Framed between the empty sky  
And the yellow sands,  
While my freed thoughts follow them  
Out to other lands.  
 
All its changes who can tell?          
I have seen it shine  
Like a jewel polished well,  
Hard and clear and fine;  
Then soft lilac—and again  
On another day          
Glimpsed it through a veil of rain,  
Shifting, drifting grey.  
 
When the livid waters flee,  
Flinching from the storm,  
From my window I can see,          
Standing safe and warm,  
How the white foam tosses high  
On the naked shore,  
And the breakers’ thunder grows  
To a battle-roar…          
 
Far and far I look—Ten miles?  
No, for yesterday  
Sure I saw the Blessed Isles  
Twenty worlds away.  
My blue moon of open sea,          
Is it little worth?  
At the least it gives to me  
Keys of all the earth