MORNING-VISION
A sea that shimmers on the brink of light,
Emerging over shadow-boundaries
Silverly on a sleeping silver shore:
Phantom-land still, still silent mystery,
Strewn with wan visions of the fading moon,
Whereon the wave that wakens barely breathes.
Which gathering soon its sweet surrendering dreams
Offers them to the yet invisible fire
That sends its fore-glow from below the rim,
Till they aspire in little golden vapours
And flicker to the pure and passionless skies,
The colour of pale melted sapphires—so
These driftings of the ocean's moon-trance mount,
And through the morning, briefly luminous,
Waver, and cease, above a brightening tide.
Then lo! the swift shrill flight of sudden gulls,
Up-circling whiteness sprayed against the blue,
The sweep of silver breasts and wheeling wings
That flash across the newly-risen sun
And cleaving through the dazzle of the day
Vanish like light dissolved in greater light
Or music drowned in heavenlier music.